


Red and Blue, Black and White

by tinfoiljones



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Adult Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-01-20 16:32:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18528859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinfoiljones/pseuds/tinfoiljones
Summary: Dragon AU! Seto Kaiba is the lieutenant of the Rafter of Domino Peak, living his days in frustration after the death of his father. Not only is he second-in-command to his lifelong rival, and the only caretaker to his hatchling brother, but his attitude towards his leader has 'earned' him solo patrol duty for the next month. On one of those patrols, he comes across an odd, aggressive dark dragon who comes with mystery, and his own set of baggage.





	1. Sun-up to Sun-down

**Author's Note:**

> ABOUT THE DRAGONS
> 
> Dragons: Dragons are giant, cold-blooded reptilian and/or amphibious species who have sapience and are capable of using passive and elemental magic. Dragons have the ability to switch between Dragon form, Intermediate form, and Human form depending on need and the situation they are in. A baby dragon is called a chick, while an adolescent is called a fledgling. There are 6 main 'types' of dragons; dragons, wyverns, amphiptere, drakes, lindwurms, and wyrms.
> 
> Rafter: A group of dragons is called a Rafter, with most Rafters having a formal name such as "Rafter of the Night Swamp" or "Rafter of Domino Peak". When multiple Rafters come together to form a community, it is called a Society.
> 
> Outsiders: Outsider is a general term for a dragon and/or dragons who are not part of a Rafter or Society. Some dragons are loners, some dragons form small informal groups usually for hunting or protection in a group usually with siblings or peers, groups like these are called a Scrum. Some Scrums are just family groups, usually made of up a bonded pair of dragons from different Rafters and their offspring. Some Scrums over a period of years even become Rafters if they secure enough resources, members and permanent territory.
> 
> Species: While Dragons are for the most part considered one species, they have variations/breeds that differ from Rafter to Rafter, which is usually because of adaptations for their environment. As time goes on, more and more "Mixed Breed" Rafters, families, and Societies are built as dragons look beyond their own Rafter for mates, or as small unrelated Scrums combine. While most Rafters have a predominant breed of dragon, hybrids aren't rare, and neither are outsiders joining a Rafter.
> 
> Magic: The dragons of this story can actually shift between dragon form, human form, and 'intermediate' form. They gain this ability upon adolescence, in which they become fledglings, although their ability to freely use this ability without help depends on their training/usage. Dragons also have an elemental core located behind the thyroid, which grants them use of elemental magic. Other magic is healing magic, and a 'feeding' magic that is an extension used to feed developing hatchlings, and a magically weak dragon. All other magic they possess is considered passive.
> 
> Diamondtooth: All leaders, no matter which Rafter, have diamond teeth. Diamond teeth are only passed through passive magic. Leadership is either passed through inheritance, if a former leader has a heir in mind, usually related to them such as a child or grandchild, ect, than with their last breath magic is released which makes the diamond teeth appear in said heir. If a leader does not have an heir in mind, than leadership will pass on to their lieutenant. Leadership can also be usurped; if a Diamondtooth is killed, or defeated and accepts the defeat, than the diamond teeth will pass onto the challenger.
> 
> Titles: Leaders, lorekeepers, and healers all have titles. For all Rafters, leader/alphas/bosses/whatever their specific term is, it is 'Diamondtooth'. For lorekeepers and healers, the title is unique for each Rafter and usually reflects on that Rafters specific skills or territory. For the Rafter of Domino Peak, the Lorekeepers title is 'Summit' to reflect on their greatest landmark, Domino Mountain. The Healers title is 'Zephyr' to reflect on their connection to the wind element, and the wind that wafts across their foothills and valleys.
> 
> Lieutenant: Lieutenant are picked by a Diamondtooth to take their place if they die without a heir in mind, this position is also usually passed on by inheritance, but it can only be officially granted or revoked by the Diamondtooth of that Rafter. They are the only higher position not to have an official title.

Rafter of Domino Peak

Predominate Dragon Species: Windriders. Wyverns connected the wind element.

Territory: Mostly foothills with valleys, but the greatest landmark being a singular mountain peak called Domino Mountain.

Diet: Omnivorous, but leans closer to the carnivorous side. Mainly buffalo and deer.

Leader: Diamondtooth Yugi Motou (Mate: Anzu Mazaki)

Lieutenant: Seto Kaiba

Lorekeeper: Summit Ishizu Ishtar

Healer: Zephyr Marik Ishtar (Mate: Ryou Bakura)

Numbers: 200+

\---

Prologue: Sun-up to Sun-down

A chirping sound entered the dark cocoon of his sleep and pulled him, very reluctantly on his part, back to the waking world. Seto cracked open his blue eyes with a displeased rumble in his chest, and back at him stared eyes of the same blue colour and shade of his own. He dully noted that it was barely dawn.

"What is it Mokuba?" The larger dragon asked as if his hatchling brother could answer him with words; either the chick was cold, bored, hungry, or had made enough waste in their nest to upset even him. The tiny chick bumped the top of his head against his older brothers chest, likely trying to reach his throat. "Hungry?" He grumbled, and Mokuba squealed more in confirmation.

With a tired sigh Seto opened his jaws and craned his head down to the level of his brothers head, Mokuba opened his jaws expectantly as he looked up at his older brother, eager for his morning fill. Seto regurgitated some of his last meal into the hatchlings mouth, which his baby brother accepted excitedly. It wasn't much, just a scrawny old ox, but it was enough to sate the dragon chick.

Once Mokuba had swallowed up all of what he was given for breakfast, his forked tongue swiped across the lipless borders of his mouth to collect anything he might have missed, and then he hopped on top his brothers large right front talon, curling up on top of it.

"Sleepy?" Seto asked bemused, as the hatchling indeed closed his eyes even as small chirps continued to vibrate in his lower throat "Lucky you, you've woken me up too much to go back to sleep." He said to himself more than to Mokuba, he waited for the chick to fully fall asleep before rolling the baby gently into the softest part of their dried leaf nest, and standing up to stretch his wings to their full span.

Seto was a large dragon now that he was fully grown, he was four legged, with prehensile front legs and talons, a long neck, and spines on his cheek, and a short pair of spike tusks at both corners of his mouth. His scales were a white, but has was not albino as indicated by his deep, dark blue eyes, and light blue luster accenting his scales along the sides and spines of his body.

Mokuba was still a chick but resembled his brother greatly, he too being a white dragon with blue eyes he didn't have his adult spikes, spines, or tusks yet, and his wings were still small in comparison to his body, but he looked almost exactly like Seto at the same age, the only thing truly setting the two dragons apart was that the luster of Mokuba's scales was more a stormy blue colour rather than his older siblings light blue.

Seto looked around and saw that most other nesting dragons were also getting up and getting ready to start their days, having also been awakened by their offspring.

Although he wasn't exactly thrilled that he had to take care of a hatchling at such a young adult age, he considered himself lucky that at least he only had one to worry about.

Shaking any stray dried grass and leaves off of him, he started walking away from his nest to stretch his legs, the nest area had at least half a dozen guards not counting the dragons who stayed with their nests until their mate would come to relieve them. He was glad he didn't have nest guard duty.

"Morning Seto." A voice from behind him said, he muttered a greeting in return that probably sounded like nonsense because he was still peeved at being awoken so early, but he knew who had addressed him.

The other dragon chuckled from behind him before catching up to be by his side. The other dragon was a deep green color with the underside of his neck, chest, belly and tail being a much paler green. He had long spines front the bridge of his nose all the way to the tip of his tail, and deep red eyes. He had a black marking on his left eye, and a bright green luster to the scales on his back. Unlike Seto, he, like most other Dragons in this Rafter, was a wyvern; he only had two back legs, and used his wings and the talons at the tips of his wings as front legs.

"Otogi." Seto 'greeted', in no mood for his flirtatious peer. Most other dragons referred to him by his family name, but Otogi wasn't the most formal dragon they had.

"Mokuba wake you up early again?" He asked.

"Why else would I be awake before the sun has fully risen from the horizon?" Seto growled, but the other dragon wasn't threatened by him.

Otogi swept his tail amusingly, bumping Seto at the back of his legs "I'm not seeing you drag the entirety of your nest away though, so it's a good thing he didn't wake you up because he used the whole thing as his own personal latrine." He laughed, and Seto rolled his eyes. Mokuba wasn't old enough to be taught how to go to designated waste areas or bury his waste, but at least he was pretty good at at least only going on the edge of the nest so his older brother could just roll the offending waste in nest material to dispose of it.

"I'm too young for this." Seto muttered "If I wanted a hatchling I would have gotten a mate so they could tend to the chirping brats."

"I'm always available, you know. Just imagine how beautiful our babies would be." Otogi cooed, flirtatiously rubbing the top of his head at the underside of Seto's chin until the white dragon snapped his jaws at him in warning. He was only teasing, but Seto was in no mood, and the thought of multiple chicks chirping at him for their seemingly never ending needs made him feel a type of dread that seemed to seep the the very center of his elemental core.

Seto loved Mokuba. He really, truly did. But there was a reason most dragons waited until they were a little further into their adulthood before starting families. Chicks were frustrating, needy, loud… and though it wasn't their fault they couldn't take care of themselves immediately following birth like most reptiles, Seto didn't have the time to properly prepare to take care of a hatchling. He'd still been reeling from the recent death of their father, and having to take his place as the Lieutenant of the Rafter when his mother showed up out of nowhere and basically forced a chirping egg into his talons.

For most of his life, Seto had been raised primarily by his father Gozaburo, a harsh, emotionally withdrawn workaholic of a dragon. He didn't know much about his mother, other than that she was a loner of a dragon who wasn't a Windrider like the other dragons of this Rafter, he actually wasn't sure what breed dragon she even was. He didn't know what her name was, or what the real relationship was between her and his father.

For most of his life, he had assumed he was the result of a one-time mating. But Gozaburo died not long after the mating season, and near the end of the incubation period she suddenly showed up.

She was a white dragon, but unlike her leucistic offspring she appeared to be a full albino; her eyes were pinkish shade of red, and she had a pale pink luster along her sides. She looked very similar to her sons if not for her much longer spines, spikier wings, a double pronged tail and a lack of tusks. She had a single egg with her, and explained she wanted to give it to her mate.

Although it was his first time properly meeting her, Seto had to explain that Gozaburo had died… and she seemed, saddened. She wasn't hysterical or anything, but there was a flash in her eyes before they turned to the ground, and her voice became slower. She explained that she had four eggs in her current clutch, but she wanted to give her estranged mate the one closest to hatching. She gave to egg to her older son instead, just rolling the egg gently, if in a rush, between the younger white dragon before she flew off, a roar of thunder between the rapid beats of her massive wings. Seto was in shock, but there were already chirping inside the egg, indications it was anywhere between one to three days to hatching, so it wasn't like he could just destroy the egg. And now, almost a year later, he was still taking care of his baby brother, with no signs of their long-lost outsider mother or their supposed siblings of Mokuba's clutch.

"Would you like to join me for some… ~solo~ hunting," Otogi offered suggestively, winking "there's a nice quiet area a few leagues away from the territory. Too far for anyone to hear any… noises, we might be making."

"I'm going to have to pass." Seto muttered, he wasn't going to play Otogi's game and get frustrated and snap at him. He wasn't a fledgling anymore.

Otogi was about to say something else when a soft wind came to them, a very particular wind, one they all recognized. "Diamondtooth." Otogi whispered to him as if he didn't already know, and he took a respectful stance and another dragon flew over and fluttered right in front of them.

The other dragon who had landed in front of them was an small dragon. Small for a full grown adult dragon at least. His eyes were a bright pinkish-purple colour, his scales were mostly black, but he had a violet cast and luster to his scales, and he had a particular lightning-like yellow pattern to his wings. Like most of their Rafter, he too was a wyvern. Although his mouth was mostly shut, one could see a slight shimmer from his diamond teeth.

"Good morning, Diamondtooth." Otogi greeted politely, with a slight head bow. The oher dragon shifted his wing talons on the ground almost nervously, although he didn't look down to them like he used to.

"You can still call me Yugi, you know." The smaller dragon told them. "We're from the same peerage after all."

Yugi was born from the same hatching group they were, Seto could still remember how he had always been a rather submissive, timid dragon and didn't make a lot of friends. He did become close friends with another dragon in their peerage, Anzu, a much bigger female who swiped any potential harassers, and eventually she rubbed off just enough on Yugi that he too eventually gained enough confidence to stand up for himself.

Seto and Yugi had never really been friends. Although Yugi was kind, Seto had looked down on him when they were younger because of Yugi's gentleness. However, when they became fledgelings, Seto's resentment for his peer became worse; Yugi may have been small and not much of a fighter, but he proved to be league's ahead of him in most other areas. Being lean and relatively streamlined with minimal spines, and wings that were long proportionally to the overall size of his body, he proved to be the best hunter, stealthiest scout, and the fastest flyer overall, and not just of their peer group either, but of the whole Rafter, which is saying a lot because Windriders are notoriously fast fliers with their connection to the wind element.

Seto, being only half Windrider, didn't have wind as an element, his element was lighting. He could only be fast in bursts. His resentment met it's apex when their former leader, Sugoroku, passed from natural causes.

When Sugoroku Motou had died, Seto thought for sure his father Gozaburo would become the next leader, but that day everyone gathered around Yugi as they saw that he was the one with a full set of diamond teeth, the sign of being a leader that came through magic.

They had all been sure that Sugoroku had no heir, for his son had died years ago, and his mate had died decades ago, so leadership should have been passed on to his Lieutenant, Gozaburo. As it turned out, Yugi had been the son of Sugoroku's son, so the former leader had decided in secret with their lorekeeper that he would be the next Diamondtooth of their Rafter.

Gozaburo, and Seto by extension, were enraged by this. Yugi was barely out of the fledgeling stage and he was a Diamondtooth already? No one besides the Lorekeeper was even aware that Yugi was Sugoroku's grandson.

For the months and years following, Yugi struggled to really embrace his leadership role. He wasn't a confronting Dragon, he definitely wasn't strict enough, and struggled to give orders to his underlings, especially those who were much older than him. Gozaburo didn't help either, in his resentment he refused to teach Yugi the ins and outs of being a good leader. Of course, Seto realized now that Gozaburo himself wouldn't have been a good leader, he thought leadership was control.

Yugi had one real supporter, his childhood best friend Anzu, she helped him learn how to be more organizational and confident, how to have a spine and give orders, and eventually he grew into his role. Although Seto thought for sure he himself would be a much more effective leader, he respected Yugi for overcoming his obstacles, because he hadn't undergone any type of grooming for leadership like Seto had.

"I'm just trying to be more formal, Yugi." Otogi told their leader. Yugi nodded and turned to Seto, looking up to him. Seto returned eye contact but said nothing.

"How's your brother?" Yugi asked politely.

"Fine." Seto replied, still a little annoyed from his interrupted sleep.

"Well, I am trying to organize a hunting patrol for the valley near the East border, there's bound to be buffalo there with how the weather has been."

"Weather?" Seto snorted "Buffalo doesn't give quarter to the weather."

"No," Yugi agreed coolly, he didn't flinch to his Lieutenant's challenges anymore "But lately it has been raining heavily at night, but it is also been full sunlight during the day. The grass grows especially well under conditions like those."

"Still, that valley is hilly, Buffalo prefer leagues of open space." Seto retorted, not backing down.

"Perhaps if you wanted to discuss hunting plans you should bring it up with me, during the allotted times for meetings," Yugi countered, eyes narrowing "anyone is open to discussing anything with me, even the organization of hunting parties. But, not while I am actively building that party."

Seto stared down at him with slits for eyes. Otogi was just holding his breath for now. "Whatever." Seto finally replied, dismissively looking away from his leader.

Yugi's eyes were narrow, but unreadable, he'd gotten better at hiding his emotions. But Seto knew he'd set himself up for reprimand. "Otogi," Yugi addressed the green dragon "Go meet up with Anzu, she's with most of the rest of the party, allow me to discuss some patrols plans with my lieutenant." Otogi gave a quick nod before taking off into flight.

"Now," Yugi said, turning back to Seto with an edge in his voice "come walk with me, Kaiba. I'd like to talk." He started walking forward, in the direction of the nests. Seto scoffed to himself and followed, but his kept his tail straight and his head up high, refusing to look any sort of humiliated.

"I thought you were over this, Seto." Yugu said, keeping his eyes forward even as he addressed the dragon trailing behind him "We are not chicks or fledglings anymore. The social hierarchy we had back then, does not apply to our current situation."

"I know that." Seto retorted.

"Do you?" Yugi stopped in his tracks and whipped his dark head around to the white dragon, his amethyst eyes blazing to an almost dark purple color. "I am the leader, Kaiba. If you want to make alternative plans, that's fine, you can always discus ideas and plans with me, but you should not be challenging me like this in front of subordinates."

"Oh so you actually see the other dragons as subordinates now?" Seto growled, bringing his head down to Yugi's level "Did you not just tell Otogi to still address you as Yugi rather than 'leader' or 'diamondtooth'?"

"There is a difference between a leader and a dictator, Kaiba." Yugi growled back with equal intensity "I do not want our Rafter afraid to approach me. However, I think you need time to reflect, and maybe Lieutenant duties are too much for you."

Seto's blood ran cold even for a reptile. Being a Lieutenant was passed onto him from his father, he had inherited it, however, any leader at any time could renounce a Lieutenant and name a new one. Out of courtesy of the bloodline, leaders usually didn't do this. Was Yugi really threatening to remove him from his position, when that position has been in his family for centuries?

"I'm putting you on solo patrol on the West border." Yugi said "One month. And it's Sun-up to Sun-down patrol."

Seto stared down at him with slightly widened eyes. Sun up to sun down patrol? That was a punishment given to Fledglings!

"You are only to return from the West border during the night, you will patrol and mark the border for its entire side. You are free to eat anything you catch, but when you come back when the sun if completely down, you better have prey with you or you will be sent back. You will return to the border before the sun is completely up the next morning. When this month is over, I will evaluate you attitude and decide if you can return to your regular duties."

"My brother-" Seto tried to argue.

"Will be fine during the day when you are gone" Yugi interrupted him, as-a-matter-of-factly "there are plenty of other guards for the nest, and I'm sure another parent around here won't mind adding him to their nest for a month. In fact, you usually leave him to himself during the day anyways, I've seen Ryou feed and clean him several times throughout the day when you are doing your regular duties." Seto cursed himself; although he did feel a bit guilty. While he did stop by a few times throughout a normal day to give Mokuba feedings, he knew he wasn't around enough for all of his needs. He knew Ryou, who was nesting a few eggs himself, would sometimes look after Mokuba… but he wasn't aware of the full extent that Yugi spoke of.

"The whole West border?" Seto asked "To myself?"

"Not entirely," Yugi said, his voice was clear "There's this years group of new fledglings, I'll intermittently send a few to you so you can clearly and accurately show them exactly where our border is, the West border is usually neglected after all." Seto mentally cursed the young Diamondtooth, all dragons in their peerage knew he hated dealing with fledglings. "You duties start immediately." Yugi said and took off into flight, going the direction he had earlier came in.

Seto inhaled deeply, rage in his chest, but also humiliation. Yugi the bastard. Thinking he could just punish his own lieutenant with fledgling duties just to save his own fragile ego…

Muttering, Seto shuffled his talons as he looked down to them, and reluctantly and slowly made his aware across the nesting area.

Ryou was a silver dragon, he was very long and tall although he didn't have much bulk to him. His had a pearl luster across the sides of his body, tail and legs, and he had a particular crown of spines encircling his head, almost like a lion, or more accurately a frill-necked lizard. He was sleeping, his tail curled protectively around a clutch of three pale, speckled eggs. Ryou was slightly older than him, enough to be outside of his peerage but close enough in age to know him, he had been a fledgling when Seto was hatched.

"Bakura." Seto addressed, Ryou lifted his head and looked up at him with tired, but kind, sun-yellow eyes.

"Good morning Seto, how may I help you?" Ryou asked, lifting his head to yawn, his crown-like frills opening a bit at the movement before falling again against his neck.

"I've been put on… Sun-up to sun-down duty." Seto admitted, looking a bit to the side to avoid the silver dragons eyes "I was wondering if you could look after Mokuba for me during the day for the next month."

An amused rumble vibrated in Ryou's throat "I wouldn't mind at all. Things are a bit quiet while I wait for my chicks to hatch, having a hatchling to look after would add a little excitement in my day. Your brother is actually quite well behaved too." He explained, Seto felt a little bit of guilt; did Ryou really take better care of Mokuba than he did? "Just bring him here next to me, I'll take him back to your nest when the sun falls." Seto simply nodded curtly to the older dragon before turning back to his nest.

Mokuba was still asleep, he had somehow managed to shift himself into a sleeping position so strange that Seto wondered how it was even possible, let alone comfortable.

Carefully, he lifted his little brother by the scruff of his neck; the skin on the back of the neck was loose enough for baby dragons to be carried this way, carefully he carried the chick over to Ryou's nest. The silver dragon shifted and opened his wing, and Seto placed Mokuba in the crook that was made.

Mokuba stayed asleep, but immediately rolled onto his back like a dead rodent. "Good luck, Seto." Ryou said, curling his wing around the tiny white dragon.

Seto simply nodded, he took a running start the other direction. Unlike the wyverns, he couldn't take off into flight in a stationary position. He opened his wings as he ran and once he felt the air under him start to lift the weight from the ground, he took off into flight, towards the West border.

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Red&Blue, Black&White is actually a rewrite of the very first fanfic I ever posted, waaaat back when. Ten years ago in fact in 2009. I was like 11 or something. It's super cringey don't read it. I don't delete it because it's the very first thing I've ever posted on FF.
> 
> Please read and review!


	2. Alligator Snapping Dragon

Chapter 1: Alligator Snapping Dragon

The first few days of the punishment weren't so bad, but it was awfully boring. The West border wasn't usually touched by most of the Rafter because of the lack of prey, and the particular forested area. The Rafter of Domino Peak were foothill and plains type dragons, they preferred having the open sky right above them. Having a forested area made them feel suffocated, and vulnerable, unable to see everything around them. Seto considered himself to be a very adaptive dragon, but even he felt claustrophobic with all of these trees around him.

The other day had been the day when Yugi decided to, without warning, send a whole gaggle of fledgelings his way. He struggled the entire time to not roar at any of the young dragons; they were energetic and talkative, excitable, loud, everything he hated. Rebecca Hopkins, a particularly precocious fledgeling, decided to show off her 'skill' to him by attempting to shift to her human form, and while she did manage to do so, she didn't have enough energy to change. It was made worse since she had no clothes on her and forgot that unlike their dragon forms, their human forms gave them a great sense of shame when it came to nudity. She sobbed the entire time trying to cover up her human form body, and Seto had to send the rest of her peerage away while he awkwardly tried to calm down her hysterics while simultaneously not looking at her so she didn't feel worse. He would have supplemented her magic to trigger her transformation back to dragon form, but such magic required eye or physical contact and it would have been inappropriate while she was in human form.

It lasted for hours, until eventually he was saved when one of her peers informed the young females mother what happened, who flew over to collect her daughter.

He was on day five now, and he was dreadfully bored. It wasn't even noon yet and he'd already scouted the entire west side border three times. He'd try catching a scrawny buck deer earlier, but ended up crashing against a tree because of his lack of experience in wooded areas.

He would consider taking a nap, since it wasn't like any other patrols ever came to this side of the border, but if he did that than that would basically mean that Yugi got to him and won and he wouldn't allow that.

He hadn't managed to catch any prey yet, but he could go for a drink; he wasn't terrible excited at the prospect because there weren't many running streams around this forest, so any body of standing water was bound to be stagnant, he could only hope it would at least be a little fresh with the nightly rainshowers.

Seto climbed up to the top of a tree, struggling to do so with his massive size compared to the minimal space provided by the cluster of trees, but once he was at the top he flung himself into the air and struggled to get into proper flight, and sighed in relief when he got the proper lift for flight.

He flew above the trees, squinting at the spaces between leaves for the reflective glare of water, it was only when he was close to a remote corner that he finally found what looked like a decent pool of water.

Carefully he returned to the ground, sniffing around. He scrunched up his nose; mud. This was definitely more of a pond than a pool of water. That meant the water was most likely stagnant and probably filled with algae and mosquito larvae. He was dreadfully thirsty at this point, and had to suck it up to quench his thirst. He approached the pond carefully, struggling to not sink into the mud and soft peat surrounding the pond. The pond water was mostly dark, but he was relieved to see that there was in fact at least a foot of a clear layer on top, free of detritus. He bent his neck down and drank in long swallows of water, making sure his forked tongue didn't so much as brush the dirty, dark layer of water beneath the clear.

He lifted his head when he got his fill of water and scrunched his nostrils trying to clear the disgusting boggy scent from them. In doing so, he caught an unusual scent, one that was unfamiliar, but familiar in it's elements - grass, earth, clay, deadwood… blood?

He looked around and saw that there was a patch of grass with dried blood droplets on the blades. He knelt down to sniff at the blood - his spines on his cheeks stiffened as he realized that this was dragon blood. Not his, nor any Domino Peak dragon that he knew. This was the blood of an outsider.

The blood may have been dried, but it was fresh, not older than a few days. Growling lowly in his throat as his pupils slitted to the width of a needle, he swept his gaze around for signs of any strange dragons. He saw depressions in the mud, definitely from something big and heavy. 'Like a dragon…' He thought, quietly following the depressions, sniffing around.

The unusual scent increased enough he could follow it's trail instead - grass, leaves, and deadwood. The strong scent of foliage mingled with distinctive dragon scent and blood. Windriders smell like precipitation and the wind. So this definitely wasn't a dragon from his Rafter.

The scent became strongest when he came close to a very large tree. This tree was huge in fact, probably the biggest in the forest. However, it was hollow at the bottom, it's base having being hollowed almost to the tree bark, and roots curling over the ground in front of the entrance. There was more blood on the roots, and there was a depression on the ground inside the tree, indicating a full grown dragon had been at least lying there. There were dried leaves covering the ground, although sloppy from being hastily put together, it was definitely supposed to be a nest.

The fresh was scent… but no dragon was there.

Seto looked side to side, before poking his head inside the entrance, taking a deep whiff of the unusual scent.

He heard the cracking of a branch, and before he could react he felt a weight crash on him, with a roar of surprise he felt himself get pressed against the ground, an almost primal growl rumbling from around him. Seto struggled to get his footing with the bare ground covered in twisted roots, but he dug his back feet in and bucked the other dragon off of him before whirling around to face him, lightning crackling threateningly from the corner of his mouth.

The dragon in front of him was another male looking to be of his age group, maybe a little bit younger as indicated by his smaller size. Like him, he was quadrupedal with his front legs and talons appearing to be prehensile even if was standing on all fours currently. He was very spiny and spiky for a dragon, and was bulky, at least compared to a Windrider. His head had a pair of back-pointing horns at the top of his head and behind his chin. His scales were a deep black with no signs of luster or break in the dark colour, and his eyes were a bright scarlet. He was clearly enraged, as his pupils were slitted to the point of almost not existing. He was crouched closely to the ground, with his wings spread wide and his tail whipping from side-to-side rapidly. An aggressive stance.

Seto crouched close to the ground as well, lightning still crackling in threat "You're trespassing." Seto growled "This territory belongs to the Rafter of Domino Peak. I'm giving you one chance to flee, before you really piss me off."

The black dragon narrowed his eyes and seemed to raise a bit from his crouched position - as if he was going to turn and leave after all. But quickly, the other dragon leapt with a strong spring of his back legs and tackled the white dragon.

Knocked onto his back, Seto opened his jaws wide and blasted the challenging male with a strong stream of white lightning. The other dragon ducked enough that only his left wing was hit, with a hiss he got off of Seto and took some steps back, when Seto rolled back onto his feet the other dragon knocked him back with a swing of his tail.

Seto regained his composure and saw dark red flames forming along the talons of the other dragon. While elemental breathing was the strongest, most primal, and easiest use of a dragons element, the element can be used in other ways, blasts can come from movements of the talons, sweeps of the tail, and flaps of the wings.

The other dragon growled at him, but his mouth was clamped shut.

Seto circled around him, the other dragon was very defensive right now but didn't appear to want to attack him right now. Seto studied his opponent more carefully now that he wasn't moving; his back right leg appeared to be injured, as he was overcompensating with his left. His tail was bent like a broken branch, with the end half appearing limp and dragging. What appeared to be bulk was actually just the bone structure of the dark dragon, he was supposed be be thickly built, but really he was skinny, with his scaly skin clinging to his broad bone structure and making him appear bigger than his lack of nourishment should have allowed. While the blackness of his scales had no luster, the scales of his underbelly had an ashy cast to it… and deep claw marks, as if he'd been clawed and burnt there. Whatever he'd been fighting previously, it definitely didn't want him to live.

This definitely explained the other dragons aggression. Dragons by default are aggressively compared to their human selves, but being sapient they are never aggressive for no reason. While a dragon trespassing isn't unusual, it's definitely unusual for a dragon to attack another on territory that isn't their own.

This dragon was hurt.

Seto stopped and raised his head, looking the other dragon in the eye "You're injured." He observed "I don't pity you, because you've trespassed on my Rafters territory. However, I'm not so low I'd try to beat down an already beat down stray." He growled "I'm not pathetic like that. So, talk."

The other dragon's slitted pupils appeared to dilate a bit as the fog of aggression seemed to dissipate, but the dark red flames spewing from his talons continued.

"Leave." Seto ordered "This isn't your territory, go lick your wounds somewhere else."

The other dragons throat rumbled with a growl as his pupils slitted again.

"For fucks sake," Seto cursed, he really didn't want to fight this dragon. Not because he felt sorry or anything like that, but his opponent was too weak to be a real challenge, the win wouldn't be worth it "go, you dumbass!" He demanded with a roar.

He tried approaching but the other dragon just stepped back, still on the defensive. Not saying a word.

"You stubborn pile of scales," Seto growled, this dragon clearly wasn't going to leave without a fight, "wait here." Seto suddenly ordered before walking away the other direction, the dark dragons eyes followed him until he was out of sight.

Seto sniffed around him until he found the musky scent he was looking for. He stalked close to the bushes until he came close to a break in the trees.

There was a sapling in the middle of a clearly, the young buck from earlier was chewing on some of its leaves. Seto crept close, trying to be as stealthy as possible, but it was a struggle. It didn't work either, because he was barely close when it's ears perked up and it got into position to leap away.

Cursing, Seto shot out an elemental breath of lighting right at the deer, he had enough reach to zap it. The deer whined and fell to the ground, flailing in twisted contortions around from the electricity. Seto hated using his lightning, because it usually made the creature suffer if he didn't immediately kill it. He rushed over and chomped on the bucks throat - the deer's warm blood filled his between his teeth and it went limp.

Carrying the prey in his mouth, he walked back near the pond and tree where the dark dragon had been. To his surprise, the black dragon was indeed still waiting for him as told. He wasn't summoning fire anymore, but he was still in a defensive pose.

"Here," Seto grumbled as he threw the carcass in front of the other dragon. The black dragon looked to it, before looking back up at Seto "What?" Seto demanded, growling "Even the most unintelligent loner knows what prey is." He scoffed. The dragon didn't move, just blinked at him, almost expectantly. "What are you looking at? Do you expect something better? You ungrateful scavenger." The dragon still made no moves "Do you think I poisoned it? Here-" he bend down and took a bite of the bucks shoulders, chewing quickly and then swallowing.

He looked back down to the black dragon, who finally stood fully up. He expected the black dragon to start eating the prey, but instead he used a talon to hook around the bucks antlers, and backwards-walked back to the hollow tree, dragging the corpse with him.

Seto raised an eyeridge and followed, the other dragon stopped at the shoreline of the pond. The red-eyed dragon was definitely more calm now, but he wasn't wholly trustworthy either. Seto sat back down, his talons neatly in front of him. The other dragon copied the same sitting position, but it was awkward with how twisted his rear leg was. "That looks bad." Seto commented. The other dragon said nothing, just continued to stare him down. Not talking, or eating the prey even if it seemed like he intended to.

"... Don't cause any trouble around here. And try not to stick around. We don't appreciate strays." Seto growled, turning away. He wasn't going to fight this dragon, he was too aggressive, and apparently stubborn. He would check up again on him tomorrow. Finding a more open area, Seto took a running start before flying off, leaving the stranger alone.

For now.

\---

"Why are you always wide awake when I'm ready to go to sleep?" Seto asked his hatchling brother as the chick continued to climb all over his neck and back, until he settled on top of his head, peeping excitedly.

He sighed tiredly. He managed to stay away from the other dragon for the rest of that day, but that didn't sate his curiosity. Why did that dragon refuse to leave? What had injured him so badly? Why didn't he say a single word?

Seto scoffed to himself and placed his head on top of his talons, he'd moved fast enough to cause Mokuba to fall off of his head, but it was a soft enough fall he just rolled onto the nest, chirping as if laughing.

He didn't know why he bothered to waste energy on thinking about the stranger.

He supposed he pitied him.

Mokuba headbutted his older brothers snout.

"Please go to sleep." Seto groaned, Mokuba whimpered, rubbing against the other white dragons face. "Here, sleep under my wing." Seto offered, lifting his wing as he'd seen Ryou do earlier, sure enough Mokuba stumbled to his side and curled up beside him, but didn't close his eyes until his brother draped his massive white wing around him.

Soon enough, the chick was fast asleep.

Quietly, Seto go up and stretched his wings, while he was tired, he still had something he needed to do, or rather, someone he needed to talk to.

He took some bounds forward before lifting off into flight, he flew high over the territory until he came close to Domino Mountain - he flew closer, and even though it was dark, some structures become more and more visible to him. A village, a simple village with archaic one-story wooden buildings, and cobblestone roads. He flew close to the edge where an unlit shack was. This was his human home.

He focused himself to his center, imaging himself smaller, flightless, standing upright… With a faint light his body began to shrink and lose structure as it build itself back up into his human form. Once Seto was fully transformed into a human, he ducked into the small home, using some remnants of his connection to his element to spark a lantern into lighting up.

He grabbed up some clothing from a chest and hastily dressed, cursing his human need for modesty.

Dragons had the ability to switch between three forms, an ability they gain as fledglings. Their true and most natural form was of course the dragon form. But during times where they needed to limit the amount they had to eat (such as during winters or famines), or do things such as read, write or use tools, they used their human form. They also used it for things such as political and social events, to show that there was no aggression.

Their human form was vastly different from their dragon form of course, if the change in species wasn't enough, their hair, eye and skin colour doesn't always match up with their dragon form. While Seto was a leucistic white dragon, in human form he was a pale man with brown hair, and his eyes were a different shade of blue, not near as dark. It was rare that a dragon's scale and eye colour matches their human form, but sometimes it does happen; Yugi for example, as a human, had the same eye color, and a spiky black hairstyle with violet rimming and yellow bangs. Yugi was always a bit of an outlier, Seto supposed.

They had an intermediate form, a 'between form' of human and dragon. They were still large, not near as large as their natural dragon form, at least twice the size of their human form, their scales and spines became armour surrounding them, their hair and eye colour reflected their scale and eye colour as full dragons, and they could still use their element to its full power. This was a form reserved for times of war, or other drawn-out battles when they needed strength and power, but also the ability to use weapons. This was also the form that most fledglings used to help them master switching to their full human forms.

Once he was fully clothed, he stepped back out of the hut and walked down the dimly lit street. It was nesting season, so a good portion of the adults of his Rafter were in the nesting area tending to eggs. Some houses were still lit, probably younger adults, or families where the children were developed enough to take human form.

He walked down until he came down to a particular hut - this one was taller than it was wide, and had a skylight ceiling but no windows. He knocked loudly on the wooden door, and heard some noises that sounded like a book being slammed on a desk.

The door opened, revealing a frazzled man with tanned skinned, spiky long sand-coloured hair, and violet eyes. "Evening, Zephyr Ishtar." Seto greeted. The healer huffed, no doubt annoyed.

"If you are here trying to give your brother sleeping aids again-" Marik begin.

"I'm over that, I promise." Seto interjected "I want to know a few things about wound healing."

Marik tightened his lips into a line, raising a brow "You? Why. I mean, I know any dragon can offer to be my student, but usually only when their young-"

"I don't want to be your student." Seto stopped him, and pushed passed the other man, letting himself inside, looking around at all of the books, notes, plants, bubbling cauldron, and vials upon vials and other containers of medicine. "I just want to know a few basics."

"...Such as?" Marik began, plopping himself onto a chair, grabbing a pencil and piece of paper.

"Setting a broken leg, and bent tail. Burns. Infected claw marks..."

\---

"Here, stray." Seto said as he came up to the hollow tree. The buck carcass was gone, save for a torn-off pair of antlers, meaning the other dragon had eaten the whole deer bones and all.

The black dragon was curled up asleep inside of the hollow tree, his head resting on top of his front talons, his eyes opened and his pupils immediately slitted, a growl thundering from his throat.

"I'm not here to fight you." Seto told him simply, there was a leather pouch sacheled around his neck and shoulders. "I'm here to help you." He opened the sachel and poured out it contents - medicine, bandages, and a rigid wood splint "We need to straighten out your leg and tail, otherwise it will heal improperly and not work correctly in the future. Not to mention the burns on your underbelly."

The other dragon stared at him, silently shocked, as if he had two heads. Seto didn't blame him; for one thing, dragons will never expose their underbelly to another dragon. It was both an instinctual thing, and a thing all are taught at a young age. A dragons underside is soft, the scales are smooth almost like their human skin, not tough and armored like most of their scales, so the underbelly was a dragons most vulnerable spot.

"Look - I'm not trying to kill you." Seto explained, moving closer. The other dragon growled very loudly at him, the claws of his large talons extending further in a wordless warning.

Seto stopped and racked his brain for a solution, before sighing "Here." he said and shifted into his intermediate form. He was covered in white armour resembling his dragon form, his hair was white with a light blue sheen, and his eyes were the same blue shade as his natural form. "I'm no real threat in this form compared to you." He said.

The other dragon was silent, and for a moment Seto thought he humiliated himself for no reason.

However, the dragon got up, and slowly walked out of his tree hollow. He got closer to set before lying down. He shifted onto his uninjured side, exposing his injured underbelly.

"Ouch..." Seto muttered as he finally saw the full damage for himself. There were large patches of pink flesh, rimmed by blackened scales and dotted by scabbing, indicating where he had been badly burnt. The claw marks appeared to have been made by a single swipe of a dragons front talons, they were deep, extending from his sternum, all the way to the base of his tail, there were about three slashes, but onto the middle was was really deep. "Doesn't look infected, at least..." He offered flatly, grabbing some of the medicine Marik had given him.

\---

The next day, Seto was the center of the territory, stalking, or at least trying to stalk, some prey. This time it was a rather plump moose. However, he made too quick of a move and the moose bounded off.

"Fuck." Seto cursed. "Blasted forest. I'll never know why any dragon chooses to live under such cover."

"It's not hard." A voice said behind him, Seto whirled around in surprise, but saw nothing.

"Who said that?" Seto demanded. He heard a little bit of a weak chuckle, and although he whipped his head side to side and up he still saw nothing "Answer more before I blast you into your next life!"

"It's just me." The voice said again, a dark shape made it's way out of the shadows, having previously blended in so well that Seto hadn't even seen them. He blinked in surprise seeing the red-eyed dragon from earlier - he was limping a bit with his splinted leg and tail, but otherwise appeared in better shape today.

"So you can talk." Seto muttered, keeping his eyes on the black dragon. The black dragon eyes sparkled in amusement.

"Having trouble?" The other dragon asked, looking in the direction the moose had gone.

"Dragons aren't supposed to hunt in the forest. We need open air." He grumbled.

"That is something a Windrider would say." The black dragon said, sitting a few feet away from Seto, his tongue was forked like most dragons, and his teeth appeared covered in soot, most likely he had been chewing on rocks or coal earlier; dragons with a fire elemental core had the tendency to swallow rock shards that their fire core would store and grind together to produce fire. "It's not about being a dragon or not you know. It's all about technique."

"And what would a stray like yourself know about technique? I'm not interested in learning how to scavenge." The white dragon scoffed. The other dragon growled at him, but it actually amused Seto a little bit. It was supposed to be threatening, but it almost seemed like a pout. Kind of cute, really.

No, no, he shook those thoughts away, not cute. He wasn't some twitterpated idiot.

"I'm no scavenger," The other dragon told him "I'm a hunter, just like you, in fact, I'm objectively a better hunter than you."

"Oh, how so?" Seto challenged.

"We're in my element." The other dragon explained, looking around the woods surrounding them, but he didn't further elaborate "Stay here and watch." He said, taking light steps towards a tree.

The black dragon was a decent distant away, and he suddenly just stopped under a tree, holding the same position for minutes on end. At first Seto was confused, especially as the moose cluelessly walked closer, nibbling leaves off of tree branches. How did the stupid creature not see him?

However, Seto softened his gaze, and as his eyes were less focused, he realized what the other dragon was doing. He stood under a large tree, where a dark shadow was cast. The shadow surrounded the dragon, and with the dark luster-less scales, he was practically invisible. The only way to really see him is if you had already known he was there.

The moose, not knowing any better, walked over to the tree that the shadow was cast from. And when it was within talons grip, the black dragon moved in a flash and snapped his jaws around the antlered creatures thick neck.

There was a considerably loud snap and he ended the preys life with one closing motion of his jaw.

Seto narrowed his eyes as the black dragon dragged the large prey over to the lightning user. "There, nothing to it." The other dragon said, his voice thick with smugness. "Want to share?"

He didn't respond yes or not, but he did bend down and take a chunk of flesh from the mooses neck "Pure biological luck," Seto dismissed "your scales are black and dull, of course you can blend into the shadows. "

"Hey, with enough technique, a dragon of any colour can master stealth." The black dragon told him, taking bites from the preys shoulders.

"Right." Seto said, unconvinced.

"Let me teach you, it's not like you have anything better to do around her, all you do is stalk the border all day."

Seto snorted, and continued eating without continuing the conversation.

A rumble close to a purr resounded from the black dragon, it was known as a content sound that dragons were capable of called a 'dragon purr'. Seto seldom used it. When the other dragon used it, for some reason it made his own vocal cords tremble. "What's your name by the way?" The red-eyed stray asked.

"What's yours?" Seto shot back.

"Jou." The other dragon answered simply with a shrug. So he really wasn't secretive after all.

"Kaiba." Seto answered, wondering why Jou was being so open, when he had been so wordless before.

\---

"And so you crouch down."

"Like this?"

"Closer to the ground, and lift your tail a little bit to be in line with your spine so it doesn't drag on the ground."

Yugi watched in fascination as his Lieutenant was teaching unfamiliar hunting technique to a sizable scrum of fledglings.

"I wonder where he learned that..." He wondered aloud, mostly to himself, but somewhat to his mate. Anzu was a large female wyvern, mainly a light orange colour like the sunset, but she had a dark red plate at the top of her head that extended to thick, front-facing horns that curved back. She had a line of dark red spines on both sides of her neck a extended to the base of her tail. Her undersides were the same dark red colour of her spines and headplate. Her eyes were pale yellow, almost like cream or ivory.

"Maybe he managed to teach himself something while he holed up in those woods." She suggested, lying down besides her smaller mate. Yugi nodded absentmindedly, continuing to watch his lieutenant.

"I almost thought I was being too harsh on him, too." Yugi sad.

Anzu rolled her eyes "He's always put himself on a pedestal, someone had to finally knock his ass down a peg or two." She told him, licking her talons calmly.

"As long as he's learning something..." Yugi said, laying down by his mates side "...Do you think I'm good? As a leader I mean."

"Don't be silly." She assured, nuzzling the side of his neck "Everyone has a transitional period to a new position, especially something as big as a Diamondtooth. And everyone has their own style of leadership. Don't be so hard on yourself."

"Sometimes I wonder if dragons would take my brother more seriously than they do me."

"Don't think about stuff like that." Anzu said, watching Seto the the group of fledglings "Yami made his choice years ago, and it wasn't the Rafter, leadership or you."

To be continued...


	3. Fugitive

Chapter 2: Fugitive

Seto's month of duty was almost up. He was flying down to his usual sentry spot, to see that Jou was already waiting there for him, with a pile of catfish at his talons.

"Why haven't you left yet?" Seto asked the black dragon, trying to sound annoyed.

"Annoying you helps me heal faster. You're pretty much a fledgling with the attitude of and angry elder." Jou said jovially, pushing a few catfish Seto's way. The black dragon's underbelly scales finally scarred over, it wasn't a small or pretty scar, but it was better than open skin and hopefully it would fade with time. His tail wasn't splinted anymore, there was a crease where it had been bent, but it was moving independently as a unit. His leg was still splinted, it taking the longest to heal. Jou was still gaunt, but he was rapidly gaining bulk back as he recovered.

Seto crunched up his snout - fish wasn't something he indulged in often, usually he only did while he was on human form. "You'd heal faster if you'd shift to your human form." Seto told him, swallowing a large catfish whole, trying to not savour the fishy taste. The dragon form was good for surviving massive traumatic wounds, but when it came to illness or rehabilitation, really anything that required an extended healing period, their human forms were better. The topic made Jou almost flinch as he looked away. He learned, that for some reason, the other was touchy when it came to the form shifting subject.

Seto settled down onto his stomach as he ate, wings furrowed, the other dragon mirrored him. In the time he'd been stuck with the scatterbrain, he learned that Jou was like him - a hybrid.

-Flashback-

"I'm actually from the Rafter of the Shadow Forest." Jou had explained.

"Isn't that Rafter made up of Darkstalkers?" Seto had asked it made sense with Jou's stealth style and black lusterless scales, however Darkstalkers don't have fire as an element, they usually had shadows as an element, which they used to either escape or hide, or literally melt into the shadows.

"Yeah, I'm only half Darkstalker though," Jou said, opening his jaws wide and revealing a flap in the back of his throat before quickly shutting his jaws closed again "My mother is from the Rafter of the Misty Swamp, a Bogcrawler." Bogcrawlers were semi-aquatic dragons that lived in swamps and ate primarily fish or bigger prey when they came for a drink in the swamp, similar to crocodiles, their element could be either water for their environment, or fire to ignite the methane that swamps were known to produce in mass. The flap in the back of the throat was a trait from Bogcrawlers, it was a flap that sealed the opening of their throat when they were submerged in water.

"At least you know what your other half is." Seto muttered "I have no clue what my mother is."

"Probably another mountain or plains type dragons. Would explain the lightning." Jou offered "Or a Stormbringer, they're considered sea-faring but really they're nomadic. I've seen a few in some Scrums. They're not Wyverns"

Seto had hummed in thought, and considered it. But really the only one who could confirm this was his mother herself.

-End Flashback-

Jou didn't want to talk about why he was so heavily injured before, and why he kept himself hidden when Seto explained his leader wouldn't mind taking him in especially when he was weakened, or even why he wasn't with his Rafter anymore. Jou liked talking though. Just. Talking.

Right now in fact he was rambling about the catfish.

"The usually come out at night you know, so they were easy to learn how to catch when I was with my Rafter because no one else in my peerage wanted to learn how to fish. My dad didn't like the fish but he seemed glad I was embracing my Bogcrawler side. The ones here are huge too, you guys should really consider to learn how to fish. Yeah freshwater fish taste a little like mud, but if you cook them just right and rinse them before cooking they're pretty good when you're used to it."

"Whatever." Seto muttered, only partially listening to Jou's rambling.

"Hey… can I tell you something?" Jou suddenly said, sounding serious… Worried, almost.

"Like what?" Seto asked, swallowing the last slimy catfish. It settled into a sloppy pile in his stomach with the rest. Hopefully it wouldn't be giving him digestion problems later.

"Well… I know you're off this duty soon. I can't leave yet though, and I need you to make sure at least no one knows I here." Jou said, tail dragging.

"You're still trespassing you know," Seto reminded him "this is my Rafters territory, and it's an established border even if most of us don't come to this part of the territory."

"Maybe I should just show you..." Jou muttered, partially to himself, he lifted his wings up "Wait here." He requested, leaping into the foliage before Seto could say anything.

The white dragon huffed, but waited as requested.

Jou soon returned, his head hanging low and his jaw closed shut.

"Well?" Seto inquired. Jou stared at him, worry evident in his eyes "Jou?" Seto further pressed. Jou slowly trudge over to him until they were a few few apart. "What are you trying to show me, how much you don't respect personal space?" Seto asked.

Jou sat down on his belly like the leucistic dragon, he seemed to think for a minute before he opened his jaws. Seto was confused, but this turned to shock when he saw a tiny black tail flop out from the long jaws of the red eyed dragon.

Jou lowered his head to the ground, opening his jaws fully, and a tiny chirping dragon chick stumbled out onto the ground.

"What the-" Seto sat up, a singular talon brought up to his chest as the tiny black baby dragon stared up at him with a singular eye, the other one still being shut closed.

Jou curled his tail over and used it to pull the chick between his front talons "This is Shizuka." He introduced. The hatchling chirped.

And it clicked. This was the real reason Jounouchi was so aggressive but also silent during their first meeting. It wasn't just because he was hurt, but he was literally holding a hatchling in his jaws. Seto hadn't expected it because unlike more aquatic dragons, Windriders do not carry their young in their mouths like crocodiles.

"This?" Seto said, staring at the tiny black dragon. She must have been a true newborn, because her wings were still drawn close to her sides, and only one of her eyes was open. She didn't have the same plated scales, spines, and spikes yet, but her undeveloped structure seemed very close to Jou's, her scales were an identical lusterless black, the only discernible difference between her and the adult black dragon was that her red eyes had a deep magenta shine to them. She looked as much like Jou as Mokuba looked to Seto. "You could have told me sooner," Seto said, looking back up at Jou "I have a newborn sibling too, you know."

"Oh-uh..." Jou's wings furled, he knelt down to nuzzle the chick "Shizuka's not my sister. She's my daughter." Seto's eyes widened - Jou may have been an adult, but he had the be the same age as Seto, if not slightly younger. And although yes, both of them were biologically old enough to have chicks, most dragons wait until at the very least the equivalence of their mid twenties to early thirties to start families.

"Your daughter?" Seto repeated, something twisted in his belly, he hoped it was just the catfish "Aren't you a little young? And what about your mate?" Unless if Jou's hybrid status allowed him to reproduce via budding, he had to have a mate.

"I know I'm too young..." Jou admitted, wrapping his tail protectively around Shizuka "It's just that… there's this tradition in my Rafter, and I can't explain it without explaining too much. Her mother..." His voice became sad "She's great. I love her. But as a friend. We aren't mates… I'm pretty lucky to have Shizuka actually… the rest of her clutch-" His voice seemed to catch in his throat, he looked away from Seto, pulling his chick into him, and Seto knew that he had to collect himself.

There was a pang in Seto's chest. Being a father at such a relatively young age couldn't be easy, especially if Shizuka seemed to be the lone survivor of her clutch, by the sounds of it.

"...Why are you showing me this, Jou?" Seto finally asked, when Jou finally got himself back together to looked to him.

"I have to stay here until my leg is better, I wouldn't stay here if I didn't have to, I swear… But I can't be dragging Shizuka all over the region when I'm the only one who can keep her safe, not when I'm not at full strength. Please, don't let others find us… Please, Kaiba." Jou begged desperation clear. Seto realized the other dragon was casting his pride aside for the sake of his young daughter.

"... Fine." Seto agreed "I'll make sure this area is clear… But if anything, and I mean anything happens to you and your hatchling, come to my Rafter for care. I don't know or care what your mission is and why it prevents you from coming to the Rafter of Domino Peak for protection, but I'm not going to play games with either your well being. Am I understood?" Seto told him. Flatly.

The black hybrid dragon nodded, seeming relieved "Thank you so much Kaiba... " He said, bringing his head over to nuzzle his cheek against the white dragon - Seto growled at him before twisting his head away from him.

"I don't know why you're so touchy, but don't do that ever again." Seto demanded. Jou simply laughed.

\---

"You don't have to open your mouth that wide to feed him, you know." Ryou told Seto, sounding amused, as the lieutenant attempted to collect Mokuba between his teeth.

"I'm just… trying something." Seto grumbled, collecting the chirper between his upper and lower jaw. His and Jou's heads weren't particularly different in size; length, width or height, and Jou had explained he could fit up to, apparently, 14 in his mouth, so it wouldn't make sense if Seto couldn't also carry a chick that way.

Mokuka peeked out from between his brothers razor teeth, chirping excitedly. He couldn't close his jaws all the way closed, but Mokuba wasn't a newborn like Shizuka.

"That's an interesting method of obtaining unusual prey." Ryou rumbled a purr, curling his long tail over his talons.

"Thut up." Seto muffled, walking back over to his own nest. He was lucky that Mokuba was staying to the front of his jaws; he didn't have a throat flap so if Mokuba went back and stimulated his throat he'd end up retching the chick and his dinner. He dropped the hatchling into their shared nest.

Mokuba looked up at him with wide, loving eyes, and a warm feeling pooled in Seto's chest like warm honey. Taking care of a chick was a handful… but he didn't mind it so much as he used to. The white dragon chick chirped at him loudly and rolled around. "Wanting to play?" Seto asked, the chick chirped - Mokuba was getting better at responding verbally even if he was too young to use words yet, and Seto was getting better at understanding the meaning of individual chirps chirps. "Alright." He said, lowering his head so Mokuba could climb onto it. "Let's go for a walk."

Once Mokuba climbed over his head, and settled on being carried on the the junction between his neck and back, Seto go up and started walking out of the nesting area. He saw parents of the Rafter with hatchlings were still up, trying to sooth their chirpers enough to go to sleep. He really was glad he only had one chick to worry about, because most dragons of his rafter had anywhere between 3-6 eggs per clutch; one large, seasoned female even had 10 currently, and he didn't even want to imaging what she and her mate had to go through in order to care for such a lot.

He came to the trail that lead to the village; he wasn't really going to walk the whole thing when most dragons preferred to just fly there, but he would walk down enough of it until Mokuba went to sleep.

Mokuba chirped excitedly, some of his chirps even beginning to sound close to babbles. Yes, a little over a year old now Mokuba should soon be moving on to the stage where he'd be using his first words.

Dragons lived for centuries, being some of the longest lived creatures known, and although their hatchling stage was comparatively fast (reaching chick to fledgling took about 11-13 years) from then on their aging slowed considerably, and they aged 1 year for every 10, and reached adulthood at about 180 years. Seto was about 20 in human years, but a little over 200 chronologically.

He stopped in his tracks when he heard talking. Yugi? Seto whipped his head in the direction the sound of conversation was coming from, and saw near a patch of boulders a few figures were standing. Narrowing his eyes, he slowly trudged his way over, trying not to over excite his brother who was drowsy by now.

He saw Yugi, Ishizu, and Marik all in their dragon forms talking to a strange dragon whose back was turned to him.

"Oh, hello Kaiba." Ishizu greeted - Ishizu was a tall, slim wyvern with a very minimal amount of spines and spikes, only having a few spurs behind her back ankles, and spines along the length of her tail. Her scales are very dark blue with a speckles of pearl luster, and her eyes were ghostly silver like the full moon.

Her brother Marik, in his dragon form, looked very similar to her, but he was bigger, more bulky, and he had a very dramatic amount of spines and spikes, the most prominent being a large double pair of back-pointing horns. His luster was like a gold dusting along his entire body, and his eyes were molten orange, like the sun.

"Summit, Zephyr, Diamondtooth." Seto greeted in return. The strange dragon turned to him. This dragon was quadrupedal rather than a wyvern, and the minute his beady, rat-like dark blue eyes met Seto, the white dragon already didn't trust him. This dragon was very spiny, but he had no horns or spikes, and his scale colour was from top to bottom a gradient from black to navy blue, and had no luster. His wings were worse for wear, appearing to be burnt and frayed at the edges, with the corner of his left wing bent. "Who is this?" This dragon looked to be a fledgling group or two older than Seto and Yugi.

"And what's this broodhen doing here?" The strange dragon asked dismissively, seeing Mokuba on Seto's back. Seto snarled at him, making the stranger take a quick step forward away from him; his mouth parted slightly, Seto could see his teeth were covered in blackened soot.

"You have some nerve, I am the Lieutenant of this Rafter." Seto told him, his sharp teeth extending in threat.

"Whatever." The stranger said, turning back to Yugi who was frowning at the exchange, Seto wasn't sure if he was disappointed at him, or displeased with this strange dragon for his rudeness towards his Lieutenant "As I was saying, if you find this dragon, you should kill him on site, or at least capture him and bring him to us so we may deal with him."

"We are not executioners or jailers, Hirutani." Yugi told him.

"Yes, yes… I forget Northern dragons are more… 'progressive', these days." Hirutani said, sounding fake polite. "However, he is a wanted criminal to my Rafter, so be sure to tell me if you at least see him." Before Seto could ask a further question, the dragon spoke up again "Have a good night, fellow Diamondtooth." He said to Yugi, before taking off into a sprint and then flight, his flight being wobbly because of his damaged wings.

Seto blinked, and looked expectantly to Yugi, discontent clear in his eyes. Yugi cleared his throat and explained "Hirutani is the Diamondtooth of the Rafter of the Shadow Forest." Yugi explained, Seto quirked an eyeridge; "He's looking for a fugitive criminal of his Rafter." The blue-eyed dragon tried to keep his face clear, but he knew that was Jou's original rafter.

"Criminal?" Seto inquired, keeping his voice clear and even, even if his mind wandered back to the red-eyed dragon hiding at the West border.

"Yes." Ishizu confirmed "Hirutani says the fugitive tried to challenge his leadership about a month ago, but cheated in their fight, and ran away before he could face the consequences. They last scented him a few leagues away from the West border."

"Have you seen any outsiders lately, Kaiba?" Marik asked "You've been guarding the West border for that period of time."

Seto's heart pounded a little; dare he lie to his leader, lorekeeper, and healer all in one go? "Not at all," He replied, face and voice straight "It's always been dull over there." He added to the authenticity by snorting dismissively.

"I see..." Yugi trailed off, nodding. "Hirutani's a new Diamondtooth, last time I checked the Diamondtooth for the Shadow Forest Rafter was Maximillion Pegasus; he must just be trying to assert his dominance over challengers. That region always was a bit more… Traditional." Yugi said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth just to say it.

"But, what's this fugitive look like?" Seto asked, still thinking back to Jou and his daughter.

"A black lusterless dragon with red eyes," Ishizu explained "Hirutani says he's a Darkstalker hybrid."

"That's not never specific, aren't most Darkstalkers a dark color?" Seto snorted, although the sinking feeling in his chest didn't leave.

"The fugitives name is Katsuya Jounouchi." Yugi finally finished.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Yes, in this story not only have ages been swapped around, but some family trees have been shifted. Here, Shizuka is Jou's daughter rather than sister. Wonder who the mother is..?
> 
> Seto doing the things Jou shows him in an add-on to show that Seto is a very adaptive dragon, who wants to learn anything that would make him better, he's not so traditional he'd only learn things taught in his own Rafter. In fact, he prefers learning things from other Rafters to give himself an edge over the other dragons in his Rafter because this way he knows techniques they don't.
> 
> Looks like Jou's a fugitive running from the law! What's our favorite blue eyes white dragon going to do now?
> 
> Please review!


	4. In the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: This is a short chapter, you can probably skip it I'm sure nothing Earth-shatteringly plot relevant happens.

Chapter 3: In the Dark

"Look at you!" Jou cooed to Shizuka, he was lying on his back and holding her above him with his prehensile talons. The hatchling chirped excitedly - both of her eyes were finally open, even if her newly opened eye was still only half wide. A deep purr rumbled in his chest as he brought the chick close enough to nuzzle "Good for you 'Zuki."

The sound of thunder caught his attention - there weren't any clouds - he quickly rolled back onto his stomach with Shizuka between his front talons, looking out of the tree hollow he saw Kaiba land gracefully some yards away. "He doesn't look away..." He said quietly to his daughter, he stood back up and walked over, Shizuka stayed at the nest but continued to chirp at the pair.

"Katsuya." Kaiba said in a hiss. Jou stopped in his tracks - and immediately cursed himself for it, because that was the exact reaction that the blue eyed white dragon was looking for. "I'm presuming?"

"You can just keep saying Jou, you know." Jou said, trying to make himself sound calm and even, but a dread was building up in his elemental core, and he more than suspected he wasn't doing a good job of hiding it.

"What did you do?" Kaiba demanded, tail whipping impatiently behind him.

"You're going to have to be more specific than that." Jou looked away, keeping one eye on his tiny daughter behind him.

"You're a criminal?!" Kaiba roared, more stating than asking. "A fugitive?"

Jou snorted "A criminal? Where'd you hear that?"

"Your Diamondtooth." Kaiba told him, narrowing his eyes. Jou felt all of his scales bristle. "He stopped by my Rafter last night to talk to my Diamondtooth, he's looking for you."

He felt his flame core heat up, he could feel the organ grind rock and coal shards together, threatening to spark fire "Do you mean Hirutani?" He growled, he felt his pupils practical restrict to non-existence. A rage built up inside, the type of rage so raw, so primal he wasn't sure how long he could control himself.

"Yes. Apparently you fought him, cheated, and then turned tail and ran off to escape punishment? Am I wrong?" Seto demanded, digging the claws of his talons into the soft, peaty ground.

-Flashback-

"No… No..." He whispered, his whole body shook as he stared at what once a nest; now only a pile of ashes. He wanted so badly to close his eyes, turn his head, deny the reality of what he was looking at, but he was unable to look away.

At the edge of the destroyed nest he could still see some leaves and grass that managed to escape the fire save for their edges. Amongst the ash and cinders the only discernible that he could see were what broke his heart the most; shards of egg shell… the slight glimmer of lusterless scales and… and little charred bits of… bits of...

Bones.

Tiny bits of tiny bones.

The bones of chicks who never even had the chance to break out of their eggs.

-End of Flashback-

A primal growl broke from the black dragon, and it made even Seto uneasy. He could sense something deeper than rage was over Jou, as indicated by eyes glowing, and his claws elongating in place. Seto bristled a bit when he saw that Jou's spines and horns were also elongating to their full potential. Dragons in their full form almost never did this, they only did this for one of two reasons; their mate and/or chicks were being harmed, or if they were fighting to the death.

"THAT BASTARD!" Jou suddenly roared so loudly all of the birds in the trees flew off and Seto swore the soundwaves made the trees quiver. "THAT - THAT - THAT MURDEROUS PIECE OF-" He threw his dark head back, roaring towards the sky, in this guttural cry a large, blazing spiral of dark red flames spewed forth. Seto couldn't help but be a little impressed, but also slightly intimidated at just how strong these flame were. Even several yards away Seto could feel the intense heat rolling off of the flame breath. "I'LL RIP OUT HIS HEART, HIS FLIGHT CORD, HIS FIRE CORE - I'LL RIP HIM APART!"

"Explain yourself Jounouchi." Seto demanded, in spite of their current situation - something he regretted right away because the indiscriminate eyes of the enraged black dragon focused on him. This was a direct type of aggression, if he couldn't have the true source of his rage; he would take a substitute target.

Jou threw himself at him, Seto tried to brace himself but they ended up tumbling back anyways with the other dragon right on him. Jou jaws snapped close to neck, almost reaching their target if not for Seto's own speed. In their fight before Seto had the advantage with Jou being injured, and while the dark dragon wasn't full strength yet, he was definitely in better shape than before, and his rage was only making him stronger.

Seto rolled back onto his feet and threw Jou off of him, he threw his head back charging a white lightning attack.

Jou planted his feet and did the same thing with his dark fire. Whatever had overcome him… it wasn't just rage. There was something else. Something deeper.

A stream of lightning shout out of Seto's mouth, and a spiral of dark fire was released from Jou's. The two attacks collided and stalled each other, just creating a lot of smoke and a growing patch of burnt Earth where the two beams met. The beams grew in diameter as both dragons put more and more intensity into their attacks.

The black dragon suddenly stopped his attack and ducked to the grounds, making Seto's charged up attack hit the tree behind them, the momentum of his own attack against the tree knocked Seto off of his feet. Jou took the opening and jumped on top of the white dragon, slammed his talons on top of Seto's head and holding it to the ground with all of his weight, leaving Seto's neck fully exposed.

Jou opened his jaws and prepared to close his teeth around the other dragons throat.

Chirp?

His jaw froze and turned slack when a chirping sound started, distant at first but ever closer. Both dragons froze.

The infantile Shizuka was stumbling to them, too young to know what was going on, just knowing her sire was under emotional distress. The newborn chick chirped for his attention as she clumsily walked over, finally stopping when she reached their side, lifting her talons onto Jou's front leg, looking up at him with big, confused eyes.

"I… Shizuka I..." With his child present, Jou's pupils dilated again, and he removed himself from Seto, instead gathering his chick into his talons, holding her close. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry… You shouldn't have to see that..." He said quietly, Seto knew he was trying to soothe the chick, but it sounded like he was trying to calm himself down also.

"...Are you going to apologize to me too for, you know, trying to kill me?" Seto muttered, still lying on his back. After all of that, he really just done with this whole situation.

"Yeah… sorry about that." Jou told him sorrowfully, he placed Shizuka down, and knelt down to feed her regurgitation, before carrying her back to the nest.

"... What happened, Jounouchi?" Seto asked, still just lying on his back on the ground.

-Flashback-

"How… How could you! They were already peeping inside of their shells!"

"Their existence was a threat to me. Be thankful they weren't old enough to even know they were alive."

-End of Flashback-

"..." Jou said nothing, he had his back turned to Seto, he was facing the tree hollow.

"I can't just allow you to stay here if you're a wanted criminal, Jounouchi." Seto told him simply. Now he was just comfortable lying on his back.

"Don't listen to Hirutani." Jou finally said, his voice was solemn "He's not even a Diamondtooth."

"...What?" Seto asked, finally rolling back onto his stomach.

"Hirutani, he's not a Diamondtooth." Jou repeated "Did you see him with diamond teeth?" The blue eyes white dragon thought about it for a second… and no, he didn't see a glittering set of diamond teeth that were characteristic of a Rafter leader. His teeth were blackened with soot… but that was such a typical thing of those who used fire that Seto didn't even pay attention to the lack of visible diamonds.

"Then why…?"

"He's a usurper, he wanted power all to himself." Jou explained, kneeling down to nuzzle Shizuka's head "When Pegasus died, he became bloodthirsty, he didn't like how the Rafter of the Shadow Forest was becoming more progressive, he especially wasn't impressed that our Lieutenant was a female. So he played dirty and put himself on top, but without diamond teeth, he's not a true leader."

"What does that have to do with you? Did you defect?" Seto asked. Jou was silent for a minute, but he stood up and turned up, and walked over to the pond behind them. He said nothing as he bent down for a drink, but there was a swishing sound instead of swallowing, and he spat the water back out, the water was stained black with soot.

Jou had his back turned to Seto again, but this time he was facing the pond. "Huritani killed all my children, except for Shizuka." He finally said, his voice thick with grief. Seto felt his hackles stiffen with shock "They were only eggs… but they were close to hatching. They were far enough you could hear them chirp in their shells... " He trailed off; Seto felt a twinge in his chest. He now understood Jounouchi's rage; it wasn't just regular anger of someone who'd been attacked, but someone who had almost all of their clutch killed. "Shizuka had hatched first, initially no one knew I had eggs at all, but Shizuka looks so much like me, that when he saw her, he knew."

"Why you?" Seto asked, his tone was soft from pity.

The black dragon was still, and silent. He said nothing, instead he turned his head and looked back at Seto with sad red eyes. He parted his jaws, his crocodile-like row of teeth free of the earlier layer of soot.

His teeth were glittering diamonds.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Holy shit Jounouchi's a diamondtooth!
> 
> Poor Jounouchi, having most of his unhatched children killed.
> 
> More to be explained later, probably a flashback chapter next.


	5. Whole Episode Flashback

Rafter of The Shadow Forest

Predominate Dragon Species: Darkstalkers. Dragons with a connection to the element of shadows.

Territory: Dark woods and forested areas thick with foliage and shade.

Diet: Carnivorous.

Leader: Diamondtooth Katsuya Jounouchi

Lieutenant: Mai Kujaku

Lorekeeper: Sunset Shadi Shin

Healer: Underbrush Yami Bakura (Mate: Yami Motou)

Numbers: 100+

\---

Chapter 4: Whole Episode Flashback

-Flashback-

In the darkest, thickest, quietest part of the forest, near the center, there was a sizable pile of long-dead, downed trees. These trees were leafless, but covered in vines and bramble to cover the gaps made by the trees being pushed together, the formation they formed was similar to a cave. There was a big mouth to the cave, and the cave was dark, but there were two dragons inside that couldn't be seen by normal eyesight.

One of the dragons was a medium sized female, she was thickly built, obviously strong. She wasn't very spiny, and only had two horns on either side of her cheeks. Her scales were a gradient of dark blue to pale blue from top to bottom, and lacked luster. Her eyes were a deep magenta. The other dragon was crouched over a pile of herbs, he was male, tall and lithe, his scales were lusterless, and were gradient of light gray to ghostly white, compared to the other dragon he was very spiny, and had a crown of dark spines encircling his head and chin similar to to a crested lizard. His eyes were bright blue.

"So… Is she okay, Underbrush?" Mai asked, shuffling her talons together. Her magenta eyes were resting fondly on the newly hatched dragon chick between Bakura's talons. The chick was chirping, almost mewling in confusion. Her wings were drawn close to her body, and her eyes were clamped shut as typical for a newborn.

Bakura looked annoyed more than anything, it was no secret the healer had very little patience for chicks that weren't his own. "She's fine, healthy." He said, pushing the chick back to her mother "Jounouchi would be proud."

Mai's eyes flashed "Any leader would be proud to have a healthy dragon born to their rafter." She defended.

He looked at her like he was about to scold a dumb fledgling. "Oh, spare me." He scoffed, looking to the hatchling "Look at her, Kujaku. If I wasn't there when you passed your eggs, I'd swear that Jounouchi had spat her out himself. Everyone in this Rafter have their scales in a gradient except for that filthy hybrid, and you have practically no spines and this one is definitely going to grow into more spines than any dragon would ever need."

Mai huffed "You shouldn't be insulting our Diamondtooth." She told him. Bakura just rolled his eyes, because he knew she had nothing left to say, or defend herself with.

The Rafter of the Shadow Forest was somewhat still stuck in it's own ways… 'old fashioned', compared to other Rafters and Societies. The former Diamondtooth, Pegasus, kept his offspring secret, which was an age-old tradition to deter ambitious dragons from killing said offspring. A Diamondtooth, when they had an egg or eggs with their mate, would give them to another nesting dragon in secret. Only that adopting dragon, and the Lorekeeper knew who the heir was in the Rafter.

Katsuya hadn't know that he was the heir when Pegasus died, and then his teeth turned to diamonds. He was shocked in fact, because he was still a fledgling at the time, being the dragon equivalent of 16. Mai really felt bad for her friend - not only did he get shoved into a role he was wholly unprepared for, but he found out that the dragon who had raised him, the elder Jounouchi, wasn't his biological father at all.

There was a bit of an uproar over this, because of Katsuya's hybrid status and age, but once he gathered his bearing he proved to be one not to be messed with. He was one of the best fighters in their Rafter, and no one who had challenged him so far (and there were a decent amount who tried) had won and taken the Diamondtooth status away from him.

Once he was settled, and turned 180 the legal adult dragon age, Mai and the lorekeeper Shadi had to have a conversation with the young alpha. There was another tradition in their Rafter; once a dragon became a Diamondtooth, they had to have offspring right away, regardless of if they had a mate yet or not. This was ensure that they would have an heir at the earliest. Katsuya was of course horrified, because he was young and didn't have a mate.

He had thought about it, and ended up asking his Lieutenant, Mai, if she would be the one to have eggs with him. She was flattered, but not wholly surprised. Mai was a few fledgling groups older than Jounouchi, but they had always been friends, so even if he didn't love her in that regard, he did admire her greatly. Not to mention, him having eggs with another dragon the same age would be be automatically suspicious.

They ended up having six eggs, which was impressive for a first clutch, but this young dark chick was the first born, and therefore first in line as heir to their Rafter. The next one hatched would be the one in line to inherit the Lieutenant position from her.

"Let's hope one of the bunch is a male huh, this one can't be heir." Bakura muttered, going back to sorting his medicine. Mai hissed at him to keep his voice down.

"She's the first hatched, she's heir." Mai informed him quietly.

"This Rafter does not take female alphas, you wouldn't even be Lieutenant if your father had any sons."

Mai snorted "I already talked to Katsuya about it," the blue dragon told him "he said he doesn't mind if the heir is female, because he's trying to move our Rafter past ancient restrictions."

"Ohoho," Bakura chuckled harshly "First a filthy hybrid, now a dragoness as an heir? What's next, a cripple?"

She swatted him with her tail, making him hiss in pain.

"I'm just saying," Bakura said, his voice was still quiet but he now held a warning tone "you need to be careful… You know our dear Diamondtooth still has opposition. I'd keep your chirper closer than a parent usually would, if I were you."

Mai looked down to her tiny daughter. Squealing and wriggling, unable to stand yet. She knew Bakura was right; the newborn chick was a dead ringer for her father. Katsuya looked next to nothing like Pegasus, the only thing he seemed to inherit from his biological father was the lack of luster to his scales which was typical of Nightstalkers, and their red eye colour; but red eyes weren't rare.

She wondered if Pegasus chose a bogcrawler as a mate so others would have a harder time realizing who the true heir was. She remembered how before Pegasus died, many assumed his heir was her peer, Hirutani.

That dragon had always been stubborn, insistent he must have been the true heir. She remembered how much he had shown off when they were fledglings, how much he intimidated anything with even the slightest big of weakness compared to him, or how if he did find something stronger than him he would get strength in numbers.

She remembered how when Shadi announced that Pegasus had died, Hirutani looked smug. He already started walking towards the leader tree when Shadi asked when he was approaching when he didn't have diamond teeth. Hirutani looked shocked, and asked the nearest dragon if his teeth were diamonds yet.

Shadi asked Katsuya to come up to the leader tree. Katsuya looked confused, and frozen in place. When all the attention was on him, they saw through his slightly parted jaws that his teeth were the characteristic glittering diamonds, the sign of leadership.

When Hirutani himself saw Katsuya with the diamond teeth - he flew into a blind rage, and attached the still-technically-fledgeling Katsuya.

Katsuya did not take this sitting down, though, he fought back and even defeated the long-standing bully dragon. Hirutani, a notoriously tough adult dragon! That victory started the first group of dragons who supported Katsuya.

And now, they had an heir.

Mai bent down and picked her daughter up by the scruff of the neck - the tiny dragon chick squeaked in protest and squirmed a bit, but went limp once Mai had her hoisted up.

'I wonder what Katsuya would like to name her?' Mai thought as she winder her way between trees, heading back to the nesting area, she had Bakura's mate, who was also nesting a new clutch, watch her five remaining eggs for her while she had her first born examined by Bakura.

The chick made a small chirp with every bump Mai made, but seemed mostly pacified for now.

Mai bumped into another dragon she didn't see - another dragon that must have been harvesting shadows.

"Watch where you're going, broodbitch!" A rude voice told her; she looked down slightly and saw it was Hirutani, in a horrid mood as always.

"I will put you on sun-up to sun-down patrol if you talk to me like that again, Hirutani!" She growled between a mouthful of baby scales.

The darker blue dragon was going to retort again when his eyes fixated on the chick in her mouth "...Yours?" He asked with emphasis, and disgust. His eyes were narrowed.

Her heart pounded, maybe the chick was so underdeveloped that Hirutani didn't see her resemblance to Katsuya? "Yes." Mai answered, quick and simple and pushed past him, quickening her pace to the nesting area.

\---

She was relieved to see her nest still safe when she returned, she gently placed her newborn down and curled up around the eggs. She saw Yami had been watching them, but now that she was back he finally closed his eyes to sleep, pulling his own four eggs close to him.

Yami was an undersized dragon, being slightly smaller than his mate Bakura who was already lithe and not particularly tall himself. He liked to joke that he was at least bigger than his brother Yugi, but no one knew who Yugi was or what he looked like because Yami was an outsider who didn't tell them where he was from, all they knew for sure at this point was that he was a Windrider around the same age as Bakura. Most suspected he was from the nearby Domino Peak Rafter. Yami was a wyvern, with black scales, a magenta luster, and a lightning bolt-like pattern and shape to his wings. His head was also almost completely encircled by back-pointing horns, the crown of horns only stopping at either side of his neck. His eyes were a dark red-leaning shade of magenta.

She heard a rustling and saw a familiar dark shape approach her, a slight glimmer from his slightly parted jaws. "Katsuya." She greeted respectfully, he sat down on his belly across from her, his eyes were sparkling with excitement "It's a female." She said, nudging the sleeping dragon chick.

"She's beautiful." He throat rumbled with a dragon purr. He craned his head to get a better look and sniff at that chick. She chirped, but stayed asleep. Katsuya nuzzled the top of her small head. "I'm sure she'll grow into something amazing." Her red gaze swept across the other five eggs; he made a cackle-like noise from the lower throat, a noise parent dragons made that urged their young to follow them, the newborn female squeaked in return, but from inside the other eggs they heard peeping sounds in response to him. They were only a day or two from hatching.

"What should we name her?" Mai asked, tucking her talons under her chest.

"How about 'Loud'?" He asked jokingly, Mai nudged him "Because she sure is noisy." He said, referring to her constant squeaks and chirps.

"How many newborns have you dealt with? Yami will tell you that they're all like that." She told him, amused.

"She's not silent though..." He chuckled, pulling her close to his chest. She curled up close to him "Gentle though… How about Shizuka?"

"Shizuka huh?" Mai mused tiredly, curling her tail around her five peeping eggs "I like it..."

Katsuya nuzzled Shizuka one more time before gently rolling her back by Mai's side. He waited for his Lieutenant and their brood to be peacefully asleep before walking off.

\---

He didn't notice a pair of enraged, dark blue eyes watching him from the nearby cover of the foliage.

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant! You need to see this!" A harsh voice and shove to the shoulder woke Mai up; she shot her eyes open angrily and saw the concerned face of a fledgling.

"What it is Nezumi?" She asked the young dragon; the fledgling was mostly harmless, if a bit of a lacky to Hirutani.

"Big bro Hirutani and the Diamondtooth are fighting!" He told her, Shizuka beside her started to squeak at the noises being made that she didn't understand.

Mai clenched her teeth and looked over to Yami, who must have gone to make waste or something, because for the time he wasn't at his nest.

"Nezumi I need you to watch Shizuka okay?" She asked, pushing the tiny chick to the fledgling, who just looked confused.

"But Lieutenant-"

"That's an order, little one." She said, gentle but with an authoritative edge "I need you to make sure she's safe okay?"

"O...Okay.." He agreed, looking down to the baby dragon.

She started off in a dead sprint towards the direction of the leader tree, and as she approached a bigger and bigger density of dragons built up, until the saw a large crowd surrounding the leader tree.

In the center of camp was Katsuya and Hirutani. Katsuya was relatively fine, if a bit heavy in breath. Hirutani's wings were singed, and the corner of one of them appeared to be badly bent.

"Give up!" Katsuya spat, Hirutani tackled him again, and they rolled around on the ground in a flash of short-range range fire and claws, but eventually Katsuya ended up on top, his large jaws with glittering, diamond teeth pressed against Hirutani's throat. It wouldn't take much pressure to snap up or cut his carotid artery, especially with his teeth being literal diamonds. "Give up." Katsuya repeated, with more emphasis this time.

Hirutani growled, but relented "I… I surrender, Diamondtooth." He said, appearing to go limp. Mai saw from the corner of her eyes some of Hirutani's lackeys slink away, probably to proverbially lick their wounds elsewhere.

Katsuya removed his jaws from around the other males neck and stood up on all fours over him, preparing to get off of him.

In a flash of bright fire Hirutani blaster Katsuya right in the exposed underbelly with an intense stream of fire - Katsuya didn't have time to yell before Hirutani used one of his back legs to claw him in the same spot.

Blood pooled from Katsuya's stomach, and the black dragon was in shock as Hirutani reversed their positions, with him standing over Katsuya as the diamondtooth was lying on the ground on his near-eviscerated belly. Katsuya tried to stand up, but Hirutain slammed a front talon on the top of Katsuya's head, keeping it pressed to the dirt. Katsuya lifted his body from the neck down up off the ground, and appeared close to shaking his challenger off. From the trees descended a group of some of Hirutani's most burly supporters.

"Give up." Hirutani mocked Katsuya's earlier order "Now, except defeat."

"You.. cheat..." Katsuya growled, blood pooling beneath him. "You.. surrendered-"

"Clean fighting is a made-up concept, so is cheating." Hirutani mocked "Now, accept defeat and give me your diamond teeth, or I'll rip them out of your skull myself."

"Never..." Katsuya growled, glaring at the lackeys surrounding him. He cried out as one of thugs smashed one of his legs with a hard blow of both of their front talons, while another one bit his tail until it was bent at an angle, trying to coax him into accepting defeat.

Mai tried to run over to assist her leader in this trap, but more of Hirutani's gang blocked her. She saw that the other dragons of their Rafter were frozen in place as they watched in horror. Never once had they seen such a dishonorable display from a challenger.

"It's over for you, Jounouchi..." Hirutani continued, digging his talons into the scales of Katsuya's head, drawing blood "Not only are you defeated… but your progeny is being burnt to nothing as we speak."

Katsuya's eyes widened in realization and horror. So did Mai's.

Her children!

She tried to turn around and rush back to the nesting area but she was tackled by another lacky "Shh… Just accept it, pretty-pretty." The male dragon mocked, Mai was too panicked to remember his name, she scored her claws down his face and escaped, rushing to her nest.

She heard a guttural roar, and a cry of pain, and soon Katsuya was running side-by-side with her, they didn't waste time with words, they had the same objective in mind.

They could already smell smoke and charr the closer they got, but they denied the worst.

They denied it until they could no longer deny that the worst had happened.

"No… No..." She heard Katsuya whisper from her side.

Mai roared in grief up to the sky, her cries could be heard for leagues.

\---

Burnt. Destroyed. Killed…

Jou stared silently at the nest that once contained the eggs of his offspring. As if to ground him into the reality that he faced, he picked up a cindered shard of an eggshell and held it wordlessly in his talons. Mai was sobbing and roaring madly, with no ending to her grief in site.

He heard padding from behind him. Gently, he placed the shard back on the ground, as if to soothe the lost soul it once contained. He knew who it was, but he whirled around, Trying to be angry but he knew he sounded desperate with grief "How… How could you! They were already peeping inside of their shells!"

"They're existence was a threat to me. Be thankful they weren't old enough to even know they were alive." Hirtani said, his thugs walking up to Jou and his Lieutenant "Don't worry, you'll both be joining them very soon."

Jou nudged Mai harshly, trying to get her to move, to run, to something. But she was so far into her shock and grieving she wouldn't obey any sort of command "Come on!" He growled, biting the back of her neck, trying not to cause damage with his diamond teeth but still trying to get a grasp of her scruff.

She started running with him, but she was still sobbing. His heart ached for her. Although he too was devastated at the loss of their eggs, Mai was the one to carry, lay and incubate those eggs, her grief and feeling of loss were at the level he couldn't fully comprehend.

They were being chased after, and were being caught up with, Jou turned around and shot a volley of fireballs at them, which slowed them down a bit as the foliage caught on fire but it wasn't going to hold them for long.

They stopped in a clearing, stopping to catch their breath and think. "What do we do?" He asked his Lieutenant, but she was still crying profusely. Jou closed his eyes and took a deep breath, brushing his snout lightly against her neck in a comforting gesture "I know.. I know..." He tried to soothe, tears streaming down as he remembered the charred remains of their offspring. The image was forever embedded into his memory.

"A… Alpha..." They heard a whimper, they looked over to see a fledgling cowering in the bushes.

"Nezumi?" Jou whispered.

The fledgling approached them almost shyly "I'm sorry… I-I didn't know.." The fledgling stammered "Big bro Hirutani told me to just tell the Lieutenant he was fighting you… I-I didn't know h-he was going to-"

Jou's teeth were clamped shut. He wanted to be angry with the fledgling for being such a tail-licker to Hirutani… But he couldn't be. He was still young, he didn't know better. And by the sound of his tone… He really didn't expect something like this to happen, and he felt regret for what did.

Jou's eye's widened when he heard a familiar chirping, he saw that between the crestfallen fledglings front paws was a newly hatched chick - Shizuka… alive, and safe. "Shizuka..." He whispered, and nudged Mai "Mai, Mai look, Shizuka's alive, she's okay!" He told his sobbing Lieutenant who's chest heaved as she took a big breath and finally looked to the ground where their newborn daughter was.

"S-Shizuka… she's okay… He didn't get her..." She sniffed, she sounded relieved, but Jou knew she still had a lot of grief over the rest of their children.

"Y-You told me to make sure she was safe..." Nezumi said softly, looking away, still ashamed.

They heard crashing behind them, as the group chasing them finally seemed to get past his fire distraction. And were heading right towards them.

Mai's demeanor changed entirely, she whirled around and got low to the ground in a fighting position "Katsuya, take Shizuka and run!"

"I'm not leaving you-"

"GO!" She roared "If Hirutani kills you and becomes a Diamondtooth, our chicks would have died for the sake of a dictator! Now take Shizuka and go before I take your diamond teeth from you instead!"

Katsuya stared at his Lieutenant in shock - he always did admire her for her true fearlessness and loyalty. He nodded, and bent down, collecting Shizuka in his mouth like a Bogcrawler would, this way she would be safe and hidden, and his talons would be clear.

Jou took a running start the opposite way, and opened up his wings.

He flew off, far away from Hirutani, where his daughter would be safe.

-End of Flashback-

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Whooo, that was tough one, sorry for anyone who has a hard time with infanticide.
> 
> Yes, Mai is Shizuka's mother. No, her and Jou are not romantically involved, some eggs are created through platonic relations, which is what their relationship is; it's platonic, they both have a great respect and admiration for each other, but they aren't in love. Having eggs for political reasons is not an unusual practice.
> 
> Jou is actually a little bit younger than Seto and Yugi! He's currently '18' in dragon years, while Seto and Yugi are '21'. Jounouchi was the equivalence of '16' when he became a diamondtooth. Ages are as follows;
> 
> Shadi: Somewhere in his 50's
> 
> Yami, Yami Bakura: Early 30s
> 
> Mai, Hirutani, Marik, Ryou, Ishizu: Mind 20's
> 
> Kaiba, Ryuji, Yugi, Anzu: 21
> 
> Jounouchi, Honda: 18
> 
> In this story, Bakura is a healer! Some of you be thinking "Whaaat? Bakura a healer!? But he's so violent and full of hate! It should be a kind and gentle character as the healer!" Weeelll buddy I dunno if you've ever met a DnD healer or underpaid ER nurse, but let me tell you, so many people in the medical field are very sarcastic and grumpy and probably hate humanity, so that's what Bakura is; an impatient, snarky and grumpy healer. Also yeah, Yami is his mate which is why he left the Domino Peak Rafter. Yami and Bakura both have the same first name which is 'Yami' but Bakura prefers to go by his family name because of how common the name Yami is. I don't know yet if he and Ryou are related or if Bakura should just be a common surname. I'll either decide later or leave it for the readers to decide, because Ryou and Bakura are already two different dragon breeds.
> 
> The reason that Hirutani's defeat of Jounouchi was not legitimate was because he claimed to surrender before springing on Jou; and he then had back up. It was not a legitimate defeat, therefore he did not take Jou's Diamondtooth status.
> 
> Please read and review for more! No seriously please.


	6. Shine Bright

Chapter 5: Shine bright

Seto was reeling, he couldn't blink his eyes with how wide they were; he couldn't look away from the glittering diamonds adorning the other dragons mouth as naturally as if he was born with them.

A diamondtooth? Jou was a diamondtooth.

"What the… fuck..." Seto finally said, Jou closed his jaws and walked back over, dragging his paws slightly. "You're a diamondtooth?"

"I'm… sorry I didn't say anything earlier… I… I wasn't sure what to say." Jou told him sincerely, resting the tip of his tail on Seto's shoulder, which the white dragon shrugged off right away.

"You could have been just slightly more formal, like a leader should be." Seto snorted.

Jou laughed softly, he walked back over the the pond and lay back by the edge of it, patting the ground next to him with to wing, invitingly for Seto to join him. Seto didn't want to, but with the knowledge that Jounouchi was a diamondtooth made him reluctantly do so; even if he wasn't of his own Rafter, the authority of a diamondtooth was not something any dragon took lightly.

"How old are you…?" Seto asked the other hybrid, tucking his talons under his chest. Jou looked to be his age at most… but he was most likely younger by at least a fledgling group of two.

"180." Jou replied honestly, Seto frowned; Yugi was that age when he became a diamondtooth, but… "I've been the diamondtooth for almost two decades." He finished.

"..." Seto said nothing. 180 was the legal adult age for dragons… for the more progressive ones that is, because it was the human equivalent of 18. The Rafter of the Shadow Forest was notorious for being traditional, maybe a little backwards even as other groups adjusted and changed with the times. While it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that they wouldn't have a minimum age for leadership, it didn't make it any less jarring.

This explained why Jou had sired a clutch already when he was still young.

"So, Pegasus was your father then?" Seto asked, Jou sighed sadly.

"Yes," he confirmed "only by biology, though. I didn't know until these diamonds came in, and our Sunset- er, lorekeeper, then told me; my egg was created via a union between Pegasus and the female diamondtooth of The Misty Swamp Rafter."

Seto thought hard for a second, he's visited that Rafter before with Yugi for a trading negotiation. "...Cecelia?" He asked.

"Yes, her." Jou nodded "I knew my mother was a bogcrawler, obviously, because I'm a hybrid. I was hatched and raised by my dad in the Shadow Forest Rafter and… he's the only dad I had… really the only parent. " He let out a long drawn-out sigh, looking out to the surface of the pond water "He wasn't the nicest dragon," He continued "he would throw me around sometimes when I became a fledgling, he would yell at me over stupid bullshit, we butted heads all the time because he was a hothead, but I guess I was too back then, the other dragons always like to tell me that I was basically my father if he was nicer." He laughed softly "But… He's gone now."

Seto stared out at the water "Mine too."

There weren't any more words.

It couldn't have been easy, for either of them. Both of them got a lot on their plate at a young age. Seto was inherited the Lieutenant position, and served a dragon he had once been in competition with, and had an egg shoved into this talons when he was a barely an adult. Jou was surprised by a leadership position when he was still a fledgling, and then pushed into parenthood the second he became old enough.

Seto thought his lot was frustrating, but he hadn't been pushed into a role unexpectedly, only to be almost killed and have all but one of his offspring slaughtered.

Hesitantly, Seto nudged closer to the shorter dragon and draped his tail over his shoulders, but he didn't look him directly in the eyes. The red eyed dragon tensed up for a moment, but went slack, accepting the comforting gesture.

"Thanks, Kaiba." He said quietly.

"Don't mention it." Seto muttered. "Literally." He growled that bit out, Jounouchi purred at him and stretched his front legs in front on his, resting his head on top of his talons and staring out at the surface of the pond water with a distant stare.

"...What are you going to do?" Seto asked his companion, Jou's red eyes narrowed at the question, and the white dragon had a good idea what the other dragon was thinking.

"Once my leg is healed, I'm going back to my Rafter and I'm going to burn Hirutani until there is nothing left of him but a sooty inprint." Jou growled, pupils constricted with the rise of aggression.

"You can't keep hiding out here," Seto reminded him "you should ask my leader for help… he's always been soft, he'll give you asylum."

Jou shook his head furiously "That's not a Darkstalkers way," he growled "we don't ask for help."

"Funny," Seto deadpanned, tail-tip twitching "you didn't splint your own sorry leg and tail." The other dragon looked a bit flushed for a second.

"Th-, that's different," Jou insisted, a little embarrassed "I didn't physically ask you for help, you just offered and I let you."

"Very different." He replied sarcastically, the dark dragon pouted.

"But… I mean it," Jou told him, sounding a little more serious and sincere "what Hirutani did was rotten… but I can't expect my Rafter to take me seriously again if I'm going to run away, only to try to take my place back only with assistance. Overthrowing Hirutani is something I have to do on my own. I'm sure your alpha great - but… if he found out, I think he might understand why I wouldn't go to him."

The white dragon sighed; stubborn fool. He saw the logic and knew he had a point. Dragons aren't the type to find inspiration in a leader who can't fight their own battles, another brazen usurper would just try to get the drop on Jou the moment he was on his own again.

"...How long do you think you have until your leg heals, Jounouchi?" Seto asked; when he was fledging he had broken his wrist and Gozaburo forced him to stay in human form for two months, because he would have healed much slower in his natural form.

"I'm a pretty fast healer… One more month or two." Jou insisted; Seto didn't really believe him, but he's give him the benefit of the doubt; he'd seen dragons with unnaturally fast healing time for normally long lasting wounds. After all, Anzu had once almost completely broken her wing from a thunderstorm accident, and yet it was fine a short month later, and she hadn't taken her human form at all during that time except at night like everyone else of their Rafter.

"I can't keep lying to my diamondtooth, you know."

"I think you will," Jou stated bluntly "you're a pretty rebellious lieutenant from what I've seen so far."

"Do you want my help, or do you want to be a smartass?" Seto retorted.

Jou purred audibly and nudged him with his shoulder, a gesture which the white dragon did not return "Why not both?" He inquired, before staring back out at the pond.

"You seem pretty taken by that pond." Seto observed; it wasn't an impressive size, and it was visually underwhelming, but Jou looked at it like it was the lake.

"I am half Bogcrawler, you know." Jou pointed out "I inherited their love of water," he hummed in thought "I remember I used to piss my dad off by swimming out into the huge lake close to my Rafters territory, and he couldn't get me because he hated getting wet. Didn't have the easiest time learning how to fly either." He shifted his wings to emphasize his point "A pure bogcrawler doesn't have wings."

Seto thought back to his visit to the Misty Swamp Rafter; Bogcrawlers were all drakes, they were unmistakably dragon, but they were quadrupedal with no wings. He'd always felt pity for their lack of flying, but he supposed it made sense, wings would get in the way of swimming. Drakes, lindwurms and wyrns were usually water faring, after all. "I don't see why you would even need wings, it's impossible to fly around all of these trees."

"Ah - no, you just got to think more when you're flying around the woods, situational awareness ya know? You never know when you're going to faceplant into a tree." Jou explained, chuckling "I'm surprised my face isn't flat after hitting so many of those. I got my head stuck in a hole this one time and almost got my eyes scratched out by this angry mother squirrel. My teachers refused to try to help me until I started burning the tree from the inside, then they had the nerve to get pissed off at me." He continued to chat, Seto rolled his eyes but rested his chin on top of his talons, somewhat listening but beginning to doze off from the constant, but consistent stream of words. He soon felt himself fall gently into his dreams.

~Dream Sequence~

He was flying - the sky wasn't ending, he wasn't sure what direction he was going, he could have been going up or down for all he knew. All he really did know was that everything was clear around him, and he could fly as long as his heart desired.

He didn't have to worry about anything. He didn't have to organize hunting parties, or border patrols, he didn't have to be the teacher for a group of fledglings.

All the weight was off of him.

"I don't understand what you see in this." A voice suddenly asked - Seto craned his previously stationary head and saw Jou there below him, or above him?

"There's freedom in flight," Seto said "you see everything around you when you're in a clear sky."

"Fair enough," Jou said, this time side-to-side with him, his wings were fixed in one position as he was flying, making it appear to be more of a glide "but don't you feel exposed? You can see everything, but everything can see you."

"I could tell you the same thing about the forest - anything can hide and you wouldn't be able to see it, but it would see you." Seto pointed out - the scenery started to change, his feet met solid ground the clear sky morphed into a thickly wooded forest, dense with undergrowth and folliage in all levels, it was mostly dark with only rays of twilight shining from gaps between leaves above.

"That's true." Jou validated, he was definitely standing next to him now, but he started to walk foreward, towards a conglomerate of shadows, leaves, living and dead plant structures.

"How can a dragon not feel suffocated when he can't even spread his wings out?" Seto asked, looking around - even in his dreams it was unsettling to be so… surrounded.

"The point of cover is that it isn't one-sided," Jou explained, crouching under the thick log of a downed tree that had ivy creeping around it and casting shadows around him "the forest has many dimensions to it. Hiding places. Low and high points..." he trailed off "A lot of dragons think it doesn't make sense, because you can't see anything around you… but do you really need your eyes to see?"

Seto blinked at him, twitching his wings.

"If something was flying above you in the sky, unless if you heard it or saw its shadow on the distant ground, you wouldn't even notice it, you can't really do that in the forest, because the forest likes to reveal things as much as it likes to hide them." to demonstrate, the black dragon took a sudden, hard step forward, and a loud SNAP of a broken twig sounded out. "A lot of dragons fear the woods because they fear the unknown, they're suspicious of what could be hiding around them; but a darkstalker thrives in the woods because we aim to be that unknown, we strive to be the thing that isn't seen until it's too late."

"I think I understand." Seto said after some thought, though the concept still felt a little slippery.

"Sometimes, to get over fear you just have to become that fear." Jou generalized with a shrug, he walked foreward and stomped on the ground again, this time a dead squirrel appeared under his paw "Want to share?"

\- CHIRP?

~End of Dream Sequence~

Seto's blue eyes groggily opened at the noise, roused from his sleep; he expected Mokuba at first but instead saw a tiny black dragon chick clinging to his snout instead, no doubt hungry. He groaned loudly and gently rolled the chick off of his snout; how long had he slept for?

He lifted up his head and saw that it was dusk; the light was gray, and and mostly gone as the sun retreated below the horizon. He was still by the pond, a few feet away Jounouchi was curled up similar to a cat, with his tail wrapped around his body as well.

"Go bother your sire," he ordered the chick, who just peeped loudly and butted at his chest.

He picked her up by the scruff and carried her over to Jou "Wake up stray." He grunted and swatted the other dragon with his tail, Jou looked up at him before shutting his eyes again. "Get up." He growled, placing the infant chick on top of her father, right on his head "Your brat wants you."

"Don't-" Jou yawned, lifting his head "don't call my daughter a brat, Kaiba." He didn't seem groggy, he looked to his daughter and opened his mouth to regurgitate into hers. Shizuka chirped happily at this, but still seemed antsy. Jounouchi's red eyes started to glow, as did hers, and she stayed still, almost fixated as he did this.

Hatching dragons don't just feed on physical food, they feed off of the ambient magic of older dragons as well; this helped their own magical abilities develop, it was especially crucial in the first year. Seto seldom did this with Mokuba anymore, but the hatchling knew how to signal him if he felt like he needed a magic boost. That first year had been very hard on Seto, he'd been practically drained and had to have Mokuba supplemented by other adults; a dragon produces more ambient, transferable magic when they become parents, and since he didn't reproduce himself he didn't have the surplus of it a true mother or father dragon would.

Dragons can't truly actively maintain and use their own magic until they become fledglings, until then the relatively simple task of changing forms or using their element requires adult facilitation and support - initially draining and not an easy thing to learn how to do, but it was a necessary task when human forms were required.

Shizuka's peeping quieted down and she curled up in Jou's talons, now sated with prey and magic.

"Great, it's sundown and I still need to catch prey before I can go back." Seto cursed, he couldn't believe he actually slept the entire day away like some kind of fledgling after their first hunting trip.

"Let me help you," Jou offered, setting Shizuka down "I'll get you a catfish."

"I hate-" Before Seto could finish the black dragon leapt into the pond, slapping him with a wave of water "...Idiot stray." He muttered, not caring if he was a diamondtooth, or if he could hear him. Shizuka looked to the water, at the ripples where her father had jumped, she was chittering excitedly; perhaps she had retained some bogcrawler traits even if she was a further dilution.

He looked to the water; as a dragon, his night vision was excellent, but he really couldn't see the other dragon; his lusterless black scales blended in perfectly with the deeper, darker parts of water. Sighing, Seto put a talon gently on top of Shizuka to stop her from potentially following her sire into the water.

The dark head of the Nightstalker hybrid popped out out the water, a giant, slimy catfish between his gleaming teeth.

"You do know that Windriders don't eat fish, right?" Seto inquired as Jou trudged out of the water, pond water droplets rolling off of his scales as if they were duck feathers.

"I've seen you eat them," Jou shrugged and placed the big catfish in front of him "just tell your leader you couldn't find any deer tonight." Seto grumbled and looked to the stinky prey.

"Fine, but only because I don't feel like hunting in this suffocating forest - if I never have to hunt in the woods again, I'll die a happy dragon."

"Kaiba, surely the woods aren't that bad to you?" Jou asked, wrapping his tail around Shizuka and pulling her close to him again.

"...They are." Seto muttering, remembering his dream. It was surprisingly informative… but it was strange. Couldn't he only dream things he already knew?

"Goodnight, Jounouchi." Seto said, he took a short sprint away and flew off, his earlier dream still stewing in his head. He was thinking too hard about this… Jounouchi was more talkative than a songbird in the middle of courting season, his brainless ramblings probably slipped into his subconscious mind.

\---

He came back to the main camp area of the territory, looking around for Yugi - he saw the undersized dragon was lying on top of a a large boulder, no doubt enjoying the lingering warmth the stone still had stored from the sun throughout the day. Tightening his teeth around the catfish, Seto walked over to him.

Yugi looked up, his eyes falling on the large fish "What is that, Kaiba?" He asked, head tilting.

"Catfith." He said muffled before placing it in front of Yugi.

The diamondtooth looked at him suspiciously "You can fish?" He asked.

"There isn't much big prey in that forest." Seto told him, his face screwed up from the fishy taste lingering in his mouth.

"I don't want the why Kaiba," Yugi said, hopping off of the boulder "I want the how."

The white dragon stared at the fish, racking his brain "Catfish are active at night," He answered quickly, remembering something from Jou's constant chatter "I bent down to take a drink and it bumped against me, it startled me and I swatted it out of the water on reflex."

"I see..." Yugi said, he didn't sound entirely convinced, and his lieutenant was worried, up until the smaller dragons eyes flicked back up at him "take this to Ryou, his eggs hatched this morning and he hasn't been able to grab anything from the prey pile." He ordered sternly, "this is acceptable, I believe you can now return to your regular duties instead of solo patrol, but don't test me." When he finished he took off into flight, he infused his wind element with his flight to zip off so fast that Seto didn't see the direction he went. He likely went to the village where his house was, to turn in for the night.

Sighing in relief, Seto picked up the disgusting, slimy catfish again, gagging when the fishy taste his his tongue and nose again. "How the hell does Jounouchi like these so much..." He muttered against the flesh of the fish, before flying back to the nesting area.

He was off the proverbial hook, for now.

\---

"Thank you, Kaiba." Ryou said kindly as the lieutenant dropped the fish in front of him. The silver dragon looked tired, but overjoyed. He had his tail curled around three newly hatched dragons; their eyes were still closed and their wings were pressed against their sides, as typical of a newly hatched dragon. Mokuba was at Ryou's other side, sleeping under his wing.

"No problem." Seto said, eyes returning to the newly hatched dragons, he coudn't see their distinctive colours in the dark "Has your mate seen them yet?"

"He took a few fledglings on a trip to collect herbs the other day," Ryou said, shaking his head "he should be back in the morning."

"Must be disappointing, him not being here for their hatching."

"Maybe a little bit," Ryou admitted, looking down to his chicks with a loving expression "but I knew things wouldn't always be favorable with a healer as a mate. His loyalty is not just to me or our family, because it's not just us that needs him; the whole Rafter needs him."

The white dragon looked down at the twitching hatchlings "So… what do you have?" He asked, a little more casually, as he picked Mokuba up by the scruff.

"Oh - two daughters, and one son. I think Marik would be pleased by them." Ryou told him in a dreamy tone, before resting his head on his talons, no doubt ready for sleep now. Seto let him be as he walked back to his and Mokuba's nest.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: A little more of a lighthearted chapter for those who may have found the last chapter too sad. A lot of talking. Jou's talkative and a little too physical for Kaiba's liking. Seto is off of his extra duties. And Ryou/Marik's chicks have finally hatched! It's about the middle of hatching season currently, so Yami/Bakura's might not be ready yet.
> 
> There are six (main) types of dragons (not counting breeds);
> 
> With wings:
> 
> Dragon: Four legs with wings, could be quadrupedal or bipedal, or both as in have the ability to walk on four legs, but can also walk on two legs with the front legs able to act as arms.
> 
> Wyvern: Two back legs, with wings. They are primarily bipedal but most have talons on the tip of their wings that act as gaspers, or to walk on.
> 
> Amphiptere: Wings, but no legs. May or may not have grasping talons on the tips of their wings
> 
> Without wings:
> 
> Drake: Four legs. Can be bipedal, quadrupedal or both.
> 
> Lindwurm: Can either have back legs or front legs, but usually they have front legs with talons that can grasp. Tail can be prehensile.
> 
> Wyrn: No legs, similar to snakes. Tail is almost always prehensile.
> 
> Now, there are outliers of course (hydras, ect), but those are rare, kind of a more case-by-case basis type of dragon. And the type of dragon does not affect their human form; their human form always is just a normal bipedal human. It does, however, affect their intermediate form since their scales and appendages turn into armor.
> 
> Please review


	7. Asylum

Chapter 6: Asylum

"Finally her eyes are opened! I was worried she would lag behind her siblings."

"Be nice Marik, everyone grows at their own pace."

Seto creaked his eyes opened annoyingly; he was lying on the grass with his wings spread far apart, collecting the rays of today's particularly bright sun. Mokuba was on top of his head, lying on his back, and sleeping quite soundly judging by the loud snores. He looked over passively to Ryou and Marik fussing over their brood, by the sounds of it their youngest daughter, Amane, had finally opened her eyes. Her brother and elder sister had already opened their eyes a week ago.

It had been over a month since Seto's punishment had ended and Ryou's three chicks had hatched. The male, Namu, was silver like Ryou, but he had the gold dusting luster of his other father, and the same molten amber eyes, he was also the biggest of his clutch and the only one to inherit Ryou's frill-neck. Malika, the older daughter was almost identical to Marik if not for her pearl luster - which actually made her look more like her aunt Ishizu - and she too had Marik's orange eyes. Amane was the youngest, and the runt of the litter, she was a lighter, more saturated blue color than Marik and had a pale gold luster to her scales. Seto focused in on the small family, seeing Amane's eyes were yellow like Ryou's.

"I'm not being mean." Marik pouted, nuzzling the side of his mates head, looking down at their chirping offspring with soft eyes "I'm just worried… Winters approaching quickly, and you know the mortality rate of runts..." He trailed off, his voice becoming soft, Ryou rubbed the top of his head under Marik's chin comfortingly. Marik's fears were not unfounded; dragon eggs hatched during the summer, but they were now at the tail end of summer, and the leaves were changing colour, telling of the dying seasons ahead of them, and runts weren't likely to survive those rough times. It didn't help that Amane's egg was the one that Marik had passed; the other two were Ryou's.

Seto carefully stepped off the rock with a yawn, stretching the stiffness out of his wings and legs. Mokuba made a keening noise, still too sleepy to want to wake up, so his older brother gently rolled him back onto the basking rock. Once they were far enough in fall, it would be time to move back into the village, which meant a winter of taking care of a crying baby again.

As much as a handful as dragon hatchlings were, taking care of human babies was something else, because babies were much more helpless than they were in their dragon forms, and they couldn't be sustained by trophallaxis or magic. Luckily, they had a milk substitute for mothers who couldn't nurse, or families headed by only one or two males.

He felt sorry for the mother dragon with ten hatchlings, though.

Shaking his head clear of thoughts, Seto set off towards the main camp to meet up with Yugi, it was already mid day and he hadn't been given any orders today. Normally, he wasn't one to seek out orders since Yugi was hands-off when it came to the duties of his lieutenant, but Seto was trying really hard these days to show his loyalty, and hopefully take suspicious off of himself after the incident with Jounouchi at the border.

He hadn't visited the black dragon since his punishment ended, and he hadn't heard of any of the patrols finding any sort of sign of him. He assumed he had either left, and was just really good at hiding. The sooner was more of a hope, and the latter was more realistic; he was a Shadow Forest dragon after all, even if he lacked use of the element of shadows.'

"Hey Kaiba!" He heard someone call above him; he looked up to see Otogi swooping down before landing in front of him, seeming excited.

"What do you want Otogi?" Seto asked, eyes narrowed. He wasn't in the mood for his peer to be harassing him again.

"You're not going to believe this - so I was flying over the woods of the West border, and you're not going to believe what I saw!"

Seto's blood ran cold even for a reptile, and his mouth grew a little dry. Jounouchi and Shizuka… Surely Otogi hadn't spotted them, right? "What did you see?" Seto asked cooly, heart racing.

"Humans." Otogi told him.

"...Humans?" Seto echoed; dragons taking their human form outside of a villages was dangerous because of their vulnerability to predators and other dragons, only desperate dragons traveled in human form; the desperation was usually because they either had no rations that could sustain their dragon forms, or they needed to hide. "How many?"

"I didn't get too good a look - I don't think they realized I saw them. Two adults, two children, at least? They had some baskets and sashes on them, they might have babies with them too."

Seto hummed in thought "It might just be a traveling scrum," he told his underling, but lifted his wings "but, you go inform Yugi, I'll check this out - was there any particular landmark they were close to?"

"Yeah, that big pond near the edge."

\---

Seto flew close to the edge of the treetops - if that month of punishment did improve anything dramatically, it was his ability to maneuver close to treetops, giving him a better view of the forest floor. In his front talon he held a cloth and spear he would take use of soon.

He landed when he was close enough to the pond to make it on foot, but not close enough to be seen coming. When he did land, he took a deep inhale of the air around him, trying to catch unusual scents.

Grass. Leaves. Deadwood. Dragon scent. All intermingled in a way that made it distinctive from the woods surrounding him. Very similar to Jounouchi's scent - but it was different. These were different dragons.

Seto closed his eyes and focused on his elemental core, imaging himself smaller, and as he willed it he felt his body shrink significantly and when he opened his eyes he was human again - he picked up the cloth, which was a tan robe to cover himself with, and picked up the spead, but he sashed it over his back. He had it to defend himself with, but he wasn't going to threaten with it right away, this would only cause aggression with the dragon parents.

He started walking in the direction of the pond, cursing himself for not bringing footwear. The forest floor was just not as forgiving as the grassy plains of his rafters territory that he was used to.

He came up to the pond, staying a little hidden behind the bushes to survey the area.

He saw that the tree Jounouchi was in before was clear of him, but there was a little movement heading towards the pond; he strained his eyes to focus on the figures approaching the waters edge.

"I don't get it, where is that damn mutt!" He heard; a male voice.

As they got closer he finally got a good look at them; two males. The taller was a pale, lithe man whose appearance took Seto aback; this man looked almost exactly like Ryou in his human form. The most notable difference was that even though both Ryou and this man had spikey white hair, this mans hair stuck up in different directions with his bangs almost appearing to be horn-like. His brown eyes didn't look quite as friendly as Ryou's either. He was wearing an off-white cape draped over his torso almost like a one-strapped robe, and a skirt going down mid thigh made of the same material. He was holding an infant swaddled up in cloth, and had a cradle basket on his back, most likely carrying another baby

The other male was dressed mostly the same except that he had a headdress of the same material covering most of his head and obscuring his face somewhat, enough that Seto couldn't make out the details of it. This man was slightly shorter than his companion, and also slim, but his skin was a dark tan colour, which contrasted against the other man who was near-albino in complexion. This man was holding two swaddled up infants. Both of the men were older than Seto, appearing to be in their late twenties to early thirties in human years.

"I'm sure he's fine." The shorter male told the white-haired man, who growled.

"I swear if that filthy hybrid fucking died on us I'm going to kill him a second time." The white haired male grunted, leaning down to gather water in his free hand and get a drink.

"Don't call him a filthy hybrid - our children are hybrids too." The shorter male chided, kneeling next to him.

"When I call them filthy hybrids, I mean it with love." That earned him what looked like a glare.

Seto swallowed to get his composure straight, and started his way over, trying to be as passive appearing as possible "Hey!" He called.

The two men automatically shot back up to their feet, the white haired male held the baby he was carrying close to him as he pushed the shorter male behind him "Back off mountain fucker!" He yelled, his free arm spread out to the side.

"I don't mean harm - look, I'm in human form like you" Seto offered; the white haired man narrowed his eyes further disdainfully, but lowered his arms. "But you are on my Rafters territory and I need to know why."

"Dads!" He heard, and saw two young preteens running up from the tree - a boy and girl, appearing to be fledglings around 10-12 years of age. The boy was wearing the same thing as his parents but without a headdress, he had black hair that looked like a spiky patch of grass, brown eyes, and his skin was tanned. The girl was wearing an off-white long skirt that went down to her feet, and a poncho covering her torso, she had tanned skin and brown eyes like the young boy, but her hair was long, spiky and white with dark magenta bangs.

"Stay behind us you damned brats!" The white haired man barked at them, they gathered around their other father instead, staring at Seto with wide eyes.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone," Seto insisted, putting authority in his voice "I'm the Lieutenant of the Rafter of Domino Peak."

"Who is your alpha?" The white haired man demanded.

"Alpha-?" Before Seto could answer, the other man spoke up.

"Kaiba? Aren't you Seto Kaiba?" The tanned man asked, passing the babies he was holding to the two other children, he looked over to Seto past his headcover, showing that his eyes were a red-magenta color.

"Yes…?" Seto answered, blinking in surprise "Do I know you?"

"Maybe, you probably don't remember me though. I'm guessing Gozaburo isn't around if you're the lieutenant." The shorter man deducted.

"Who are you?" Seto asked, with a demanding edge, the white haired man didn't like this tone directed at his mate and angrily scowled at him.

The man took off his headcover, revealing a signature star-shaped hair style; black with magenta tips, and yellow bangs so similar to Yugi's if not for the bangs that sprang up into the main body of hair like lightning bolts. In fact, this man looked as similar to Yugi in his human form as his mate looked to Ryou; he was only slightly taller, had a darker tan, and his eyes were slightly more red.

"..." Seto wracked his brain, but while this man looked very similar to Yugi, he still wasn't familiar with him "You… look like my leader." Seto deadpanned.

The tanned man chuckled "I figured you'd say that," he said "I'm his older brother, Yami Motou. I left the Rafter before you two were fledglings."

Seto thought back; the hatchling stage was so long ago, only being 12 years while the fledgling stage was 170… all he could imagine was Yugi alone except for Anzu.

"I think I've heard of you..." Seto said, thinking hard "but we thought you were dead?" Sugoroku was considered without an heir not just because his son had left, but because his sons first child had also died… no, not died; he'd disappeared while he was still a fledgling, an older fledgling but still not an adult yet.

And here he was.

Yami shook his head "No, I wasn't dead… I, I just left." He explained vaguely, before he looked up "This is my mate, Bakura."

"Bakura?" Seto repeated, thinking back to Ryou. He looked to Bakura with confusion "What's your family name?" He asked.

Bakura snorted, crossing his arms best he could whilst holding an infant "Bakura is my family name, idiot." He scoffed.

"...Do you have a brother?"

"I don't think so-"

"Speaking of brothers," Yami cut in "how is mine?"

"He's the diamondtooth."

Yami's eyes widened in surprise "...Wow, so early?" He said aloud in disbelief, before chuckling to himself "Wow, my tiny little brother a diamondtooth! I'm never would have thought..." He trailed off.

"What brings you back?" Seto asked, approaching slowly to not raise alarm; to make a point, he unsashed his spear and threw it behind him, opting to approach unarmed, this seemed to calm the group down quite a bit, though Bakura still didn't look pleased. "What is it you want?"

"First of all, don't talk to me like I'm some common outsider," Bakura interjecting, still standing between Seto and his mate "I happen to be a healer, you know."

"A… healer…?" Seto questioned; healers almost never leave their Rafters territory for anything other than medicine gathering "You?" And healers aren't normally this abrasive.

"We're from the Rafter of the Shadow Forest," Bakura told him, tone still harsh, but he muttered the last part a bit "we're here seeking asylum."

\---

"Yugi," Seto said as he flapped down to the clearing with the article of clothing in his talons; as he transformed into a human he pulled the article back over him, minimizing exposure; the other dragon sitting on leader rock looked to him confused "Yugi somethings come up."

"I'm assuming if you're in your human form," Yugi said, climbing off of the rock, "what's going on Kaiba?"

"We have asylum seekers." Seto explained, crossing his arms as he looked up to his leader "But… one of them is bound to be familiar to you, you may want to take your human form for this, and maybe sit down."

"Where are these asylum seekers? Does this have to do with those humans Otogi spotted near the border?"

"That is them, I sent them to the village to the Counsel Hall, they're not in the shape to transform back into dragons." Seto explained.

"I'll change into a human when we get there, but can you tell me a little bit why they were here?" Yugi asked, as he started walking towards the village, Seto walked alongside him though he stayed in human form.

"They're from the Rafter of the Shadow Forest… they've fallen on hard times."

"Does this have anything to do with that fugitive Hirutani was looking for?" Yugi inquired.

"Somewhat. For starters, Hirutani is not a diamondtooth," Yugi's eyes widened "and the fugitive was their real diamondtooth, who Hirutani attacked dishonorably when he claimed to surrender a challenge fight, a few months ago." Seto continued to explained, remembering the look on Jounouchi's face when he re-lived his trauma in memory "He escaped to recover, but Hirutani's been acting dictator ever since… he's fallen back on more 'traditional' aspects of their Rafters culture. He killed most of the eggs of their real diamondtooth, and now their healer and his mate escaped because his mate is an outsider, and their children are hybrids." More tradition/backwards Rafters weren't very accepting when it came to hybrid dragons "They only managed to last so long because he's a healer and he's too important to just drive away… but they were afraid that their older children would die in 'accidents'."

"That's terrible..." Yugi frowned "What about their females?"

"He's restricted them all to not leave the main camp or nesting area without a male."

"Disgusting." Yugi growled, shaking his head. "Has no one tried to stop him?"

"They're too afraid of him. He has too many loyalists willing to bully the rest of their Rafter into submission."

"We're definitely offering these poor people asylum..." Yugi said, as they came up to the village Yugi took a different path - to his own home. Once he was out of sight, Seto continued walking his way to the counsel hall.

\---

The counsel hall was similar to a church, but no patron gods, there was a large chair at the center at the end surrounded on either side by smaller chairs, up on a platform elevated from the rest of the floor by a short walk of stairs. Sitting at the stoop of the stairs was Yami, Bakura, and their scrum of children.

"Daaad can I go back to being a dragon? I keep tripping like this." The girl child, Mana, asked.

"No, you just have to adjust to walking on two legs, you'll be fine." Bakura said, rocking two of the infants simultaneously. It was almost jarring how he managed to be so gruff, but so gentle at the same time.

"Can we at least be intermediate?" The boy, Tozokuo, asked, he was lying down on the stairs with his head resting on Bakura's lap.

"No." Bakura repeated.

"Dad?"

"No Tozokuo." Yami answered. It was equally as jarring how the children referred to both of their fathers as 'dad' and yet the two men seemed to understand which one they were referring to at any given time.

The lieutenant strode over, crossing his arms "Yugi will be here momentarily," Seto told them "I told him your predicament.. But not who you are," he turned to Yami specifically "I'll leave it to you to explain."

"He won't be very happy with me..." Yami said quietly, leaning slightly on Bakura as he supported with other two infants "I don't even know how I'll explain myself."

"The truth." Bakura suggested bluntly "Tell him you ran away to prove how tough you were on your own, only to almost die because you weren't that tough, and ended being nursed back to health and also seduced by me" Yami rolled his eyes and the two older children made faces.

"Dad, gross." Tozokuo said, scrunching up his nose.

"Quiet down boy, you'll understand when you have your own mate."

"I'm here," a voice said at the end; they turned to see Yugi standing there with a few guards by his side. Yugi was wearing an attire of of leather and light chainmail armor, and had a dagger strapped to his side, likely just in case if this was a trap of some kind "who are the individuals seeking audience with me?"

Yami handed the two infants he was holding to their older siblings and began walking over. Seto observed as Yugi's eyes widened as he recognized his long-lost brother, but they immediately narrowed again. Seto was seeing a rare emotion flash in the other mans eyes; rage.

"Yugi," Yami said softly, looking down slightly at his younger sibling, before taking a knee respectfully "or should I say, Diamondtooth?" He offered the younger a small smile.

"..." Yugi took a step forward, and continued until there was little space between the two of them.

"It's, been a long time..." Yami said, looking up at his brother.

"..." Yugi's eyes were unreadable for a second, but his pupils suddenly turned into dragonic slits.

WHAP!

Yami suddenly fell back, holding his cheek where the leader had just struck him. Yugi's fist was still curled from punching him. Bakura's snarl could be heard from across the building as he sprang up from his feet, somehow managing to quickly and also gently set the two infants he was holding on the ground - he rushed over, seamlessly taking his intermediate form and standing over his mate protectively, his wings spread in an intimidating display, his hair had turned silver and his eyes had turned blue, reflecting on his dragon palette.

"You damn runt! Touch my mate again and I swear-"

"Bakura," Yami hissed, sitting up "go back to being human." He covered his swelling eye with a hand.

"I-"

"Now." Yami pretty much growled "This is a Diamondtooth for gods sake." He warned in a lethal tone.

Bakura's eyes flicked at Yugi, he still looked angry, but he picked up his discarded garments and transformed back into his human appearance.

"I understand your angry." Yami sighed, his tone was soft as he looked up at his enraged sibling, who now hand his arms crossed and his gaze deadly "I left you all those years ago."

"You left me alone." Yugi spat "Our father died before I was born - our mother had just died, Yami! I had no idea Diamondtooth Sugoroku was our grandfather. You were the only family I had left and you just abandoned me!" He ranted "Did you even know that were his grandsons?!"

"...I did." Yami admitted.

"Well I didn't, I was barely an adult and suddenly I'm a diamondtooth because my brother not only left, but told me nothing! Was I nothing to you?!"

"It's not that Yugi. I had to leave, you don't understand." Yami tried to explain, standing back up, his mate was still hugging over his shoulders from behind.

"I don't think you understood either, because you're back." Yugi said harshly; he looked back to the two frightened fledglings in the back, and their four infant siblings, and his eyes softened a bit, but he was still angry "No matter; we will allow you to stay for now, my lieutenant will get you and your family lodged." He turned to leave.

"Yugi-" Yami tried to plead, the dark glare that Yugi threw over his shoulder was enough to make even Seto hold his breath.

"You are allowed to stay here, Yami," Yugi told him, slowly turning his gaze forward again "But you and your mate are not permitted to speak to me. Any comments, concerns and requests will be dealt with by my lieutenant, and if you try to approach me I won't be so generous." He walked out briskly, the guards following him.

Leaving Seto alone with the family.

"Is he always such a dick?" Bakura asked the brunet, taking a look at his mates eye and scowling "That's going to leave a black eye… don't worry, I've got the herbs necessary to make an healing press for that." He told his multihaired mate gruffly, before gently kissing below his injured eye.

"I swear he isn't normally like this," Seto told them "he's always had a difficult time even being strict. Having his brother return has struck a nerve I didn't even realize was there."

"It's all my fault." Yami said softly, only for Bakura to furiously shake his head.

"Don't listen to that runt, he wouldn't listen to your side for a moment and that's his problem. Oi, where's your healer Kaiba? Our little ones need formula." As in on cue, one of the babies started whining, which made their older siblings look panicked.

"I'll grab him… and his mate."

"Why his mate?" The white haired healer asked with a raised brow, one arm still slung over Yami.

"You'll see why."

TO BE CONTINUED…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: A little backstory for Yugi and Yami! Also, Bakura and Yami as a couple with their horde of children. And where's Jounouchi now?
> 
> You may be asking, why the hell do they have four babies and two teens?! Well, remember an average dragon clutch is anywhere between 3-6 eggs, less so for younger dragons, or a dragons first clutch. They had their first clutch about 10-20 years ago, which was only one egg each (because usually same-sex dragon couples will impregnate each other). Mana and Tozokuo are currently like 12, while the four infants were the same eggs Yami was incubating a few chapters back. Dragons don't have clutches every year, they will usually have another clutch when their last one goes into the fledgling stage.
> 
> So Bakura is a harsh one. He basically hates kids, except for his own.
> 
> Hatchlings and child dragons cannot transform on their own, an adult dragon has to magically trigger the transformation in them, again this is a survival mechanism for the winter and times of famines, because a baby dragon requires wayyyy more sustenance than a baby human, even if baby humans are limited in what they can eat. This is also why hatchling stage is so fast/short compared to Fledgling (hatchling only being roughly 10-13 years, while fledgling stage is 167-170)
> 
> Please read and review!


	8. Hunting Trip

Chapter 7: Hunting Trip

"This is literally the worst day of my life." Seto muttered, lying on his stomach in the nesting field, as eight hatchlings crawled all over him as if the large white dragon were a big rock or a tree.

"You sure are popular with children." Yami told him with a chuckle, basking on a nearby rock "I'm guessing they see you can get as grumpy as one."

"Keep it up and I'll give you yours back." Seto snapped; the hatchlings playing on and around him were Mokuba, Namu, Malika, Amane, and Yami and Bakura's clutch of four whose names Seto had yet to learn properly.

It'd been almost a month since Yami and Bakura arrived to the Rafter of Domino Peak, and although some of the Rafter especially Yugi was distrusting of Yami after his years of disappearance, they'd actually settled rather nicely. Bakura was, surprisingly, very popular; the Underbrush as his Rafter called him, was a very gruff and not at all respectful dragon, but there was something very down to Earth about his coarse personality. And since he was a healer, he worked alongside their own healer Marik, and gave the Zephyr more free time to spend with his mate and children.

Speaking of Bakura, even in dragon form he was extremely similar in appearance to Ryou; they were both silver (even if Bakura's was in a gradient), had the same general body shape, and were frill-necked. Generally speaking, their biggest differences were their dragon breeds with Ryou being a Windrider wyvern and Bakura being a Darkstalker dragon, and their differences in eye colour in dragon form, which were basically inverted colours of each other, Ryou's being light yellow and Bakura's being dark blue.

This had been quite the incident when they met each other, especially since they shared a family name. They ended up going to Ishizu for some family background to see if their bloodlines had intersected at some point in the past. After a few days of going through the Rafters records of births and deaths, she found that they were cousins; they had the same grandparents. Many years ago, a Domino Peak dragon and a Shadow Forest dragon had a one-time clutch together, and when the eggs had hatched the Windrider took the wyvern children while the Darkstalker took the dragon children, to match up with their respective clans better.

While this made a lot of sense, the revelation that Bakura was a mixed breed dragon was very much to his chagrin. His mate teased him for days that he too was a 'filthy hybrid' and their own children were more Windrider than Darkstalker.

It was for the better though, because the family settled better with the Rafter since both of them had family ties to it, the two Bakura's were getting along just fine, disturbingly well even; although Yugi still forbade his older brother from coming anywhere near him.

Seto, however, was still stuck with helping the refugee family, so he was consistently getting stuck with a scrum of dragon chicks. Of Yami and Bakura's four newest clutch they had two sons, Atemu and Bakari; and two daughters, Kamilah and Bastet, they'd hatched shortly before their fathers left the Rafter of the Shadow Peak and their eyes were now opened and they were mobile, if a bit clumsy.

Bakura was currently off to the side, sitting with Marik as the two conversed over stories of their patients, and sorting piles of herbs "And that moron had the nerve to wonder why his leg wasn't getting any better." Bakura told the other dragon.

"You'd think dragons would put their health before pride." Marik replied.

With Bakura and Yami being a bit more divulging when it came to information about their Rafter, they didn't have a reason to be secretive like Jou - Seto had yet to tell them that he knew where their diamondtooth had been - taking human form in the Shadow Forest Rafter was considered shameful, because of their vulnerability. No dragon, even when facing starvation or life threatening infections, would ever take their human form, which was why they were seldom seen in any form other than dragon, and why their Rafter was still relatively small and didn't have a human village. Even the intermediate form was off the table for most of them.

Bakura was so reluctant to take his human form, it wasn't until his family was in imminent danger that he could force himself to do it. Even Mana and Tozokuo were reluctant. It must have been a profound phobia if even the rational Bakura considered it an absolute last resort.

This explained why Jou refused to take his human form, even if it would speed up the recovery time of his broken leg.

"Hey Uncle Kaiba!" A voice from above said; he sighed and rolled his eyes as the fledgling Mana landed right in front of him, a big hare in her small jaws. In dragon form, Mana was a wyvern like Yami, but she was lusterless, and her scales were a dark gray to light gray gradient from top to bottom, and her eyes were blue like Bakura's.

"I'm not your uncle." Seto deadpanned, looking down at the fledgling.

"This is stuff that plains dragons like, right?" Mana asked, dropping the hare in front of him.

"While I appreciate that you're trying to adapt to this rafter and it's prey, that's too small for an adult dragon." Seto told her "However, do you know how to utilize prey that's too small for dragons?"

"Uhhmmm feed it to the chicks?" She asked.

"No, you take it to the human village; up to three humans can get a meal out of a hare that size." He explained. She looked at him like it was a new concept… and, yet, it was a completely new concept for her, being from a Rafter that was against human transformation. "You should go take it there, we can preserve it for the cold months."

"Preserve?" She inquired, tilting her head. Since she'd been forced to be human a few times since she arrived, she and her brother and father were starting to get used to human meals, however, those meals were usually fresh.

"With a lot of food items, we have to preserve them because prey disappears during the winter and plants don't grow as well, we have different methods of preserving. There's drying, salting, or storing in dark and cold places like cellars. It depends on what it is. For meat, we dry it out."

Mana squished her nose "Sounds gross if it's not fresh."

Seto rolled his eyes "Better than starving to death." He said, as one of Mana's hatchling siblings started chewing on his front talon, which he didn't care too much because they didn't have teeth yet. "Now just go take that to the village, ask an adult their to change you into a human." He told her.

She reluctantly picked up the hare and flew up again.

"Okay, I think I'm done with all of these chirpers." Seto muttered, standing up; all of the hatchlings clung onto him like a bunch of burrs. He walked over to the two healers off in the distance "Hey Bakura." He said to the unaware silver dragon.

"Wha-" Bakura asked, looking up and squawking as all of the hatchlings were dumped on him. As the hatchlings piled on top of him, he looked up angrily at the Lieutenant.

"I'm taking a break, you and Yami just stay here in the nesting area." He told the disgruntled healer.

"You son of a-"

"I'll escort you all back to the village later." Seto interjected, turning away and lifting his wings up. He heard Bakura continue to swear as he attempted to get the hatchlings off of him. He was surprisingly gentle for such a coarse dragon, but it was probably because four of the hatchlings were his own.

"Wait up," he heard, he turned again and saw Ryou approaching him "let me join you."

"I was going hunting." Seto explained as Ryou caught up to him.

"I'm trying to get back into top shape," The silver dragon said "now that the eggs are hatched I can finally start back on normal duties."

"You'd be better off on your own." Seto dismissed, but the windrider was insistent.

"I heard you found a different way to hunt," Ryou observed "in the woods? I'm interested in learning… and to be honest," he lowered his voice a bit "I'm stir crazy as bloody hell. I need some time away from the nest."

"Fine." Seto grunted; Ryou immediately took off in flight. Cursing wyverns for their ability to fly from a stationary position, the white dragon took a running start to fly.

\---

"Do you think it'd be worth it?" Ryou asked as the two dragons stalked a black bear from the top of a tree.

"It doesn't have any cubs, so we shouldn't have to worry." Seto replied, extending his claws "I'll distract it from the front, you hide in the bushes until it rears up on it's hind legs, you scan attack its throat."

They quietly as possible came back down to the ground, Ryou trying to conceal himself in the foliage.

Before Seto could make a move, a black blur shot out from the nearby bramble cluster and tackled the large black bear.

"Oh no." Seto said out loud; luckily Ryou didn't seem to hear him. He watched as Jounouchi rolled with the bear a few times before sinking his soot-covered teeth into the bears throat, piercing the thick fur and skin and making bright red arterial blood fill the red-eyed dragons jaws. The bear went limp.

"Ryou, please don't-" Before Seto could finish the silver dragon already jumped out of cover, his frill-neck expanding to it's full diameter, taking a threatening stance to the intruder.

"Trespasser!" Ryou growled to the strange black dragon; Ryou wasn't an aggressive dragon, he was more of a hunter than fighter any day. However, he was pent up from months of being in the nesting area, so he was more gung-ho than he would be normally.

Jou blinked at him in surprise "Bakura?" He asked in surprise, obviously mistaking the windrider for his Underbrush.

Seto quickly made his way over to diffuse the situation. "Kaiba?" Jou asked, looking to the white dragon who immediately cursed him under his breath for making it apparent that they had at least met. As if to make the situation even worse, the dragon chick Shizuka stumbled out of the bushes and clumsily padded over to her sire, looking up at the other two dragons curiously.

Ryou's softened a bit in the presence of a hatchling, but he kept his defense, even as he looked back to Seto suspiciously "You two know each other."

"..." Seto wasn't sure what to say "Uhh-"

"We know each other well, actually." Jounouchi interrupted the white dragon, picking up his daughter by the scruff of the neck as he stepped over the black bear.

'Jounouchi I swear to the gods if you let Ryou know I've knowingly harbored a fugitive-'

"He's the sire of my daughter."

If Seto wasn't so good at keeping composure he probably would have fallen over.

"...What?" Ryou inquired, blinking in confusion. He looked to Shizuka; surely he wouldn't believe him, Shizuka looked exactly like her father except-

Except that her eyes were slightly purple.

"... Is this true?" Ryou asked, looking to his peer.

"Uhhh." Was all Seto could say.

"He's a bit reluctant because we're young," Jounouchi continued with the lie, coming up to them and rubbing the top of his head under Seto's chin, who was too startled to push him away this time "but he's truly a stud."

Seto was very close to falling over at that comment.

"..." Ryou was silent as Jounouchi pulled away from the blue-eyed Lieutenant "Wow." Ryou finally said, turning his attention to the still startled Seto "I didn't think you had it in you."

That comment finally broke him out of his stupor "-And what's that supposed to mean?!" He demanded.

"Well, no offense, but I thought you were asexual."

"How am I supposed to not take offense to that?"

"Being asexual isn't an insult."

"Ahem," Jou cleared his throat, "anyways, I came to collect my daughters sire; I have to get prepared for the winter, and I was hoping to have a few days with him."

'What the fuck' Seto thought.

"I guess your energy is needed elsewhere..." Ryou trailed off, looking to Seto "You go on, Lieutenant."

"But the Rafter-"

"I'll tell Yugi that you're just going on hunting trip for a few days, you take care of business with your family; I won't tell anyone if you're not ready." Ryou nodded respectfully, if a little bit awkwardly, to Jounouchi, and flew off beyond the canopy above them.

Once they were alone, Seto glared at the black dragon who was now just licking his front talons nonchalantly "Why would you say something like that?!" He demanded.

"Shadow Forest dragons specialize in being sneaky, you know." Jounouchi said, licking the top of Shizuka's head "We're not above lying for the greater good."

"What's the greater good in this case?" Seto asked as drew his wings closer to his body, still glaring at his darker counterpart.

"As you can see, my leg is all healed up." Jounouchi explained, moving his hind leg in demonstration "So that means it's time to go back to the Shadow forest and take my Rafter back from that murderous bastard."

"And how does that concern me?" Seto asked. "You yourself said you don't want help getting your backwards, backwoods Rafter back."

"I don't need help fighting," Jounouchi told him "I'd never need help with that. However, I have my daughter to worry about, I can't leave her unattended while I fight Hirutani and his goons, I don't have anyone in my Rafter that I trust right now. I just need you to keep watch on her while I'm fighting; and, just in case..." He trailed off; but Seto understood what the 'in case' was.

In case if he didn't make it.

"You know, your insufferable healer and his family have taken sanctuary in my Rafter." Seto told him, the black dragon blinked but shrugged.

"I guess that makes sense..." Jounouchi started, tone becoming solemn "My Rafter traditionally isn't the kindest to outsiders or hybrids, there was no way that Bakura was going to take that standing… speaking of which, who was that dragon who looked just like him except a wyvern? He seemed way too… not an asshole, to be my Bakura."

"That was Ryou Bakura," Seto informed him "he and Yami Bakura are related through their grandparents."

"They're cousins?" Jou started to laugh "O-Oh my gods! That's hilarious! Bakura's a hybrid! That'll knock that asshole down a peg."

"You seem very fond of him." Seto deadpanned, watching the dragon practically roll on the forest floor in laughter.

"Oh, don't get my wrong; I love Bakura." Jounouchi said "But, he's always been a bit uh, blunt."

"Yeah I've caught onto that." Seto stated bluntly. "Believe it or not, the Domino Peak dragons love him. Also, Yami is our Diamondtooths older brother."

"Oh wow. Well, most of us already believed he was a Domino Peak dragon anyways." Jounouchi replied, regaining composure as he stood up and put his daughter onto his back. "Well, let's get started on our way then."

"Have you ever considered asking me?" Seto asked, annoyed as the dragon sauntered by him, brushing his tail under his chin in a manner that would be considered flirty if he wasn't mocking him.

"Be a good baby-daddy, and come along, honey." Jounouchi continued to mock, making his voice sound maternal at the emphasized words. Seto grumbled; he had every right to tell Jounouchi to fuck off, but if he returned to his Rafter right now he would either have to explain to Ryou that he was harboring a wanted criminal, or return without telling him anything and making himself look like a deadbeat parent.

Annoyed, Seto reluctantly trailed after the diamondtooth, presumably in the direction of the Shadow Forest.

TO BE CONTINUED...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Short but important, and dialogue.
> 
> Seto sure is popular huh, he got himself a niece, a daughter and a baby-momma all in one afternoon.
> 
> So Bakura and Ryou are cousins; for dragons, the family name comes from their dame; the dragon who passed their egg (with most same-sex couples, both of the dragons will pass eggs, because couples who are m/m or m/f have less eggs per individual clutch compared to m/f couples. There are exceptions to general name rule this, of course, such as dragons who are only raised by one parent (Seto, Mokuba), or adopted (Jounouchi).
> 
> Please read and review.


	9. Nightmare of the Forest

Chapter 8: Nightmare of the Forest

Seto thought he hated the forested area of the western border.

As it turned out, he hated the Shadow Forest more than he'd hated anywhere else he'd ever been in his over two centuries of life - and he'd been in stuck in a canyon environment for an entire summer for a political mission in the middle of a decade long drought.

The forest of his territory paled in comparison in both thickness of growth and overall darkness, very little light made it to the forest floor with the thick canopy above them, and although Jou moved almost soundlessly as he had the experience to walk nearly weightless, Seto found himself stepping on a loud twig or stepping into a hole every other step. The foliage absolutely surrounded them, making them have to push themselves past the undergrowth and giving them little breathing room, and seemed to go on for leagues both beyond and above them. Never before had Seto managed to feel so big but so small at the same time.

"I hate this place." Seto hissed to his companion, who made a grunting noise but said nothing, as he was currently holding Shizuka in his jaws, which were clamped shut to hold her in place and keep her protected. "I don't know why Darkstalkers love the forest so much." For a moment he thought back to that dream he had a while back that had Jou in it, but he disregarded it.

The forest in it's never ending list of oxymorons and contradictions, was also extremely quiet but very noisy at the same time. The wind that filtered through the trees caused branches and their leaves to shift, and the leaf litter to crackle, there were the occasional cries and songs of small birds, but between these sounds there was a deafening silence.

Jonouchi suddenly stopped, making his companion almost stumble as he hadn't expected it; Seto took a survey of their surroundings to to his relief found that they were in what was somewhat of a clearing, there was a break in the trees above them, although the grass here was a little long and broken only by a small boulder about a quarter the size of a grown dragon.

Jonouchi quietly walked over to the builder and placed Shizuka by his talons; she squeaked a bit in protest, since he'd probably jostled her out of sleep, but he stared softly at the boulder as he sat back on his haunches, wrapping his dark tail around his front talons and Shizuka.

"What, tired?" Seto grunted, expanding his pale wings to their full span now that he had some breathing and stretching room.

"Not exactly." Jonouchi replied, back still to Seto as he faced the rock "My father is buried here, right under this rock." The statement made the blue eyed dragon pause for a second, but he walked up to and sat beside the other dragon as he too looked to the rock.

"Which father do you mean?" Seto asked

"Jounouchi senior." The black dragon said in almost a snort "Pegasus may have been my sire… but he didn't raise me. He means little more to me than my former alpha."

"So alpha is the term you use instead of 'leader' around here?" Seto asked; at first he'd thought it was a weird Jou thing, but Bakura and even Yami used the same word. It wasn't too unusual for different Rafters to use different terms for their leadership after all. Seto had heard all manner of synonymous words in relation to a diamondtooth; from king/queen to lord/lady, but alpha was a new one.

Jou cleared his throat as he closed his eyes, resting his head on top of the rock "Darkstalkers have an old legend," he began "that we were nomadic before we settled in forests, we'd only come out at night but had no specific territory. The story goes that a large scrum of Darkstalkers were getting frustrated because they could not find their niche like the other dragons had - but one day, they were near a forest and watched a pack of wolves work together to take down a large prey animal, before they slunk back into the woods and disappeared. We decided to be like the wolves, we learned from them how to live in the forest where most dragons dare not to venture because of our size affinity for flight… The legend even goes, that it was the connection to the forest that gave us our connection to the shadows, not our nocturnal preference." He explained. "But that's why we use the term 'alpha'."

"A bunch of dragons acting like wolves?" Seto snorted, resting down on the grass "Legends really don't make a lot of sense do they?"

"Doesn't your Rafter have their own legend?" Jou asked, laying down in the grass as well "Usually any Rafter will have their own weird, mystical origin story."

The blue eyes white dragon hummed in thought; Gozaburo wasn't much of a storyteller, most stories he knew he had picked up second hand from other dragons of his peerage. "There's an old tale that our territory used to be entirely fields and plains." He explained "But our original diamondtooth, the founder of our Rafter, loved our home so much he wanted to always be a part of it. They say that Domino Peak, the mountain our Rafter is named after, sprung up overnight from where he was buried."

"And you say our wolf story is unbelievable." Jou teased, holding Shizuka close with his talons.

Seto rolled his eyes "I didn't say I believed such a ridiculous story… Usually there's supposed to be some kind of moral, which is why I don't subscribe to such fables."

"I don't think there's supposed to be a moral to our origin story," Jou said with a thoughtful voice "but most of our beliefs and stories have a running theme."

"Such as; bigotry, stubbornness, intolerance." Seto deadpanned, the other dragon whacked him with his tail lightly.

"No," Jou insisted "we have one goal; we strive to be the nightmare of the forest."

"Geeze, and Yugi says I have an inflated sense of self-worth." The leucistic dragon muttered.

Jou grinned at him initially before he looked back to the rock and frowned, then he looked up to the sky wistfully. "I'm going to have to be the biggest nightmare in the forest if I'm going to take my alpha position back from Hirutani, and the respect of my rafter again." He statement ended off in a growl.

"If you truly want to be a nightmare how about you just make all of your dragons eat catfish?" Seto sarcastically remarked; which earned him a bit of a side-glare.

"Maybe I haven't put my foot down hard enough," Jou said, thinking, as he looked back down from the sky "I tried being progressive… And I'm going to continue us down that path, but if my Rafter will only take an authoritarian figure seriously, that's what I'm going to have to be."

"I suppose that's the problem with backwoods Rafters," Seto commented, ignoring his dark companions growl "Yugi would have been eaten alive if he was the diamondtooth of your Rafter."

"You don't have a very high opinion of your Diamondtooth… do you, Kaiba?" Jou inquired, sounding suspicious and disdainful. Seto couldn't really blame him, since he was a diamondtooth who'd been betrayed by one of his own, but it was still a rude inquiry.

"Don't mistake me for Hirutani," Seto warned, glaring at the other dragon briefly before looking down at his talons "I wouldn't play dirty to become a diamondtooth."

"But is it what you want?"

"I think I'd be more efficient than Yugi."

"Why and how?" Jou pressed.

"Mind your own business stray, I'm trying to help you." Seto hissed in warning before resting his head down on his talons.

Silence, occasionally broken by bird song.

"The sun is setting soon," Jonouchi suddenly said, he stood up slowly and carefully placed Shizuka near Seto "that means the Shadow Forest dragons are starting to stir… I will challenge Hirutani at the main camp just as he did me." He explained.

"Do you think he will play dirty?" Seto asked, grabbing the chick by the scruff of the neck as he too stood up; Shizuka squeaked at being carried different than usual.

"Of course he will; he's underhanded and sneaky even on Darkstalker standards." Jonouchi confirmed, then focused at the shady forest ahead of them "But I'll be expecting his tricks this time..." A flicker of flames ignited around his talons, making the grass around his singe. "However," he willed the flamed down "first things first; we are liberating the dragonesses. I'm getting my Lieutenant back."

\---

The nesting area was marked by the types of trees it had; these trees were all evergreen type, and the area was surrounded by a thick barrier of blackberry bushes, which at this time of year had no berries and was starting to shed its leaves, but it's thorny branches still provided an impressive barrier with it's sheer mass.

The area appeared to be guarded by five male dragons; these were some of Hirutani's more loyal followers, less likely to be swayed by the dragonesses pleas in favor of Hirutani's orders.

"I'm going to enjoy this," Jou whispered to the white dragon "You say hidden here, I'm going to shred these dragons into vulture food."

"You're going to fight five of them at once?" Seto inquired in doubt.

"No," Jou answered, crouching close to the ground "one at a time."

Seto slunk back with the dragon chick, getting behind a ragged clump of blackberry vines while the other dragon started stalking the nesting area.

The nesting area was big enough that there was a considerable distance between each of the posted guards, giving Jou the space he needed. He slunk close to the vine barrier, using the shadows casted by the trees to stay hidden; though he didn't have the element of shadows like most of his Rafter, he he the element of stealth through training.

The first guard was a large dragon with a dark green to pale rust gradient, he appeared to be fatigued, meaning he must have been a daylight guard. He was lying on his belly, lazilly licking between the claws of his talons, he didn't see his true diamondtooth lurking in the shadows.

In a dark flash Jounouchi leapt from the thorny vines and tackled the unsuspecting guard; before the guard could roar to alert the others, Jou slammed his front talon on top of his head and slammed it into the ground, forcing the dragon to lost his ability to open his jaws with the black dragons weight pressing on his head.

Jou lifted his head up high and slammed the side of his head against the top of the other dragons skull - given the hard spikes on the side of his head, this blow completely cold-cocked the dragon guard, who went limp in unconsciousness.

The red eyed black dragon drew his wings close to his body as he slunk back into the shadows and repeated the same thing with the four remaining guard.

Shizuka squeaked, clearly alerted by the atmosphere, Seto tried hushing her but she kept whimpering until he relented, and as he did often with Mokuba he brought her close tyo his chest, and looked her in the eyes; his eyes, and then hers started to glow, as he supplemented her some magic to support her underdeveloped elemental core. She finally quieted down.

Seeing Jou flicking his wing in their general direction in a signal to follow him, Seto crept out of the blackberry bushes, carrying the dragon by the scruff of the neck and followed the Shadow Forest Diamondtooth, but kept enough distance that he's be able to escape if Jou got jumped.

"Mai!" Jou called, whipping his head around in random directions, looking for his Lieutenant.

"D-Diamondtooth?" They heard a meek voice; they turned to see an undersized female dragon who must have been around Jou's age; she was a dragon with lusterless scales that were a dark purple to lilac gradient from top to bottom, bright blue eyes, and strange horn-like projections out of the top of her head that were scale-covered. Seto noticed with a slight cringe that her wings were fastened to her body with chains, preventing her from moving them and presumably flight as well.

"Miho," Jou said softly as he walked up to his peer "Miho are you okay?"

"Hirutani is terrible..." She whispered, burying her head into the dark dragons chest; Seto realized bemused that the whole damn Rafter was touchy-feely, it wasn't just Jou after all. Jou comfortingly brushed his snout against the top of her head in somewhat of a nuzzle.

"I knew he would be, but I'm here to help." He told her softly, then looked to the chains with narrowed eyes "Did he chain all of you?"

"Just the dragonesses… we can't take them off." Miho told her alpha sadly.

"No, a regular Shadow Forest dragon couldn't take these off… Only Hirutani and I have the element of fire." He said, then stood straight up and backed away "Miho I need you to close your eyes okay? I'm going to melt a section so I can take the chains off." She hesitantly nodded and closed her eyes. Jou grabbed the chains with his talons, he pulled trying to get some slack which there wasn't much of. Flame flashed around his talons, and the chains began to glow red; gritting his teeth as the heat absorbed by the metal began burning him, Jou shut his own eyes in pain and tugged the chains hard until they snapped apart.

Hissing, he lightly placed his burnt talons back onto the ground; Miho blinked her eyes open as she almost hesitantly expanded her wings; Seto was surprised to see that she had two pairs of wings; a main pair of wings that matched the rest of her body scales, and a smaller, transparent pair directly under them.

"Thank you." Miho whispered to the red-eyed dragon, flapping her wings.

"Please," Jou started "where is Mai? Is she okay? Tell me Hirutani didn't..."

"She… She's alive." Miho replied; Seto caught the sad tone in her words, meaning there was an inevitable 'but' to what she was going to tell him "But, she's… She's not the same." Miho looked to the ground, downtrodden.

"What do you mean?" Jou pressed; the violet dragon shook her head sadly.

"You should see for yourself..." She explained sadly, then looked over her shoulder "She's over there." She explained, pointing her wing in that direction. Jou nodded and looked back to Seto, he started to walk off and the white dragon followed him; Miho finally seemed to notice the stranger but she did nothing but stare.

As they approached they saw a large blue shape, and when Jou saw it he quickened his steps "Mai?" He asked, raising his voice just a little; Seto saw the dragon did not move. "Mai?" He repeated as he came behind the dragon, brushing his snout against her shoulder.

Strangely, though she didn't have chains around her wings to keep them pinned to her body, her wings were completely limp.

The dark blue dragon slowly turned "It's me Mai." Jou said, looking up to the larger dragon; she stared down at him with hollow magenta eyes.

"Katsuya." She said simply, her voice was as hollow as the look in her eyes; Seto studied her and saw that the dragoness scales were almost faded, even compared to the regularly lack of luster that was typical of Darkstalkers, and she was malnourished, looking like a pelt of scales draped over a dragon skeleton.

Jou looked over his shoulder and motioned for Seto to come closer. "Our daughter… look at her." Jou told her; Seto was a bit surprised, he was under the impression that Shizuka's mother had been a random dragoness, not his own Lieutenant.

Mai looked briefly down at the dragon chick; but then immediately snapped her head away with her eyes shut closed "I can't..." She said.

Jou frowned at her reaction "Mai… don't you want to meet her?" He asked softly, he leaned upwards and rested his chin on her head, Shizuka chirping at their feet. "She's got a little of your eye color, you know."

"I can't stop seeing it..." Mai told him, eyes still closed; Seto thought about it for a moment, and realized she was referring to the destruction of the rest of their clutch.

Jou sighed heavily and sadly "Why haven't you escaped…?" He asked "Like Bakura and Yami did?" She was, afterall, not chained up like the other dragonesses.

Mai was silent, she mumbled something before answered "Hirutani severed my flight cord." Seto's blue eyes widened, he looked behind the female and with a squint he saw a wicked scar in the junction between her wings. The flight cord was a cord that branched off of the spinal cord in the spine. Just as severing the spinal cord took away the ability to walk…

Severing a dragons flight cord took away their ability to fly.

"No..." Jou whispered in shock, with the edge of either anger or despair. "T-That bastard, how dare he. Not only killing innocent eggs, but mutilating our Lieutenant." His voice ended off in a low growl; he nuzzled his friend comfortingly, before turning to Seto "We have to make haste, we're going to liberate the rest of the dragonesses, and once we have them rallying behind us I'm going to give that usuping bastard exactly what he deserves."

Seto flicked his wings "I have an idea." He told him; Jou was a great fighter able to throw off most of his opponents because he was a brawler by nature and nurture. Seto, was a tactician in contrast, which was what they were going to need to overthrow Hirutani, because brawn alone wasn't going to cut it this time.

Jou's pupils dilated, he wrapped his wing around Mai best he could before he turned back to Seto "What's the idea?"

"A plan."

\---

The Shadow Forest Rafter's main camp was distinctive from the rest of the forest for the types of trees it was made of; in this case, redwoods. Ancient redwoods too, some having trunks thicker than the average dragon body length. The biggest redwood was the leadertree; this tree was unique also because it was dead, it's branches completely bare of what would usually be evergreen leaves, and the reddish bark was bleached.

Hirutani stared at at the camp with narrowed eyes as he stood in front of the leadertree, his tail draped over his front talons as he watched a few dragons slink around the camp, just beginning to wake up for the night. The moonlight was gently flooding the camp, making their gradient scales blend in with the contrast between moonlight and tree shadows.

"That is not your place." Shadi said to him from the healers cave; a chain wrapped around his neck with the other end connected to the cave walls.

"Pipe down old man." Hirutani growled, blasting a singular volley of fire at the Sunset. "You'd be wise to know your place."

"I know my place Hirutani," Shadi said, calmly sidestepping the attack to avoid it "but do you?"

"I defeated that runt, who cares if it was fair or square? The only reason he still has those diamond teeth is because he was too much of a coward to stick around."

"Katsuya Jounouchi is the true leader of this Rafter." Shadi said, looking down at the angry dark blue dragon, even as he began to angrily approach him. He stood straight up, even as Hirutani struck him down with his talons, leaving a large slash mark across his muzzle.

"If he was the great alpha meant to truly lead our Rafter, he would have laid his life down for it. But no, he ran away like a coward, hiding behind his brood bitch."

"You will answer to your crimes. Whether it be on this Earth," Shadi looked up, blood oozing down the claw marks but his expression remained clan "or in the Afterlife."

"Foolish old lizard." Hirtani muttered as he turned away from the healer cave; his eyes widened as he looked back to the leadertree.

There stood in all of his strength was Katsuya Jounouchi himself. His tail, underbelly and leg completely healed. His lusterless black scales had a healthy sheen and his red eyes were bright, but enraged. Under one of his front talons was the unconscious body of a camp guard.

When Jou saw he had Hirutani's attention, he stepped over the unconscious guard, walking over slowly with his black wings spread out to their full massive size. "Hello, Hirutani." Jou greeted coldly, his voice edged with anger. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Hirutani growled and started circling the Darkstalker hybrid as well "Well, well," he mocked, lifting his wings upright above him in a threatening manner "if it isn't the prodigal son… or, rather, the coward bastard."

Jou's pupils slitted "You should have quit when you originally surrendered, Hirutani." He growled "You could have lived if you did… but you cheated, you killed my clutch, you mutilated my Lieutenant, you've oppressed the Rafter… you are getting exactly what's coming to you, you bastard."

Hirutani looked around, and smiled as he spotted a few of his loyal followers watching from the shadows. He looked back to the younger Shadow Forest dragon and extended his claws. "You don't have the guts to give it." He growled mockingly.

Jou didn't answer with words; he leapt at the dictating dragon and tackled him right to the ground in a flash of claws and diamond teeth. Jou wrapped his jaws around the back of Hirutani's neck and stood on all fours before picking him up off the ground and flinging him several yards away at a tree. Hirutani hit the tree with a loud smack, the redwood shook as he hit the ground.

Digging his front legs into the ground Jou blasted at him with a large stream of fire; Hirutani flipped back onto his feet and fired back at him with an equally large firebreath; the two fire attacks collided but cancelled as Jou ducked and once again tackled Hirutani, this time pinning him against the tree as he snapped his jaws over and over again trying to grab his throat, with Hirutani just barely managing to evade the bites. Diamond teeth would easily cut through the soft skin and scales of the throat.

Dragons had gathered and were watching; some appearing afraid, some reserved, some even hopeful. Amongst this tempest of emotions from the collective of the Shadow Forest Dragon, the most prominent one was anxiety. Either outcome could have problems; did they want to have an oppressive dictator as an alpha, or a progressive hybrid who might push away their traditions and way of life?

Jou had Hirutani pinned; the blue dragon struggled but the sheer strength of the Diamondtooth was superior to his own; sensing this, some of his followers started to pull out of the cover of shadows, quickly approaching them with the intent of overpowering Jou by their numbers.

When they were a few feet away they heard a rustle and a roar as a flash of lightning struck the ground in front of them; the group of supporters jumped back in surprise as they heard a crack of thunder and a white blur shot out from the trees; once it landed it looked to them with threatening blue orbs and then reared up at them on hind legs.

They looked to each other and backed up slowly; this white dragon was a sight to them - by sheer contrast he was massive compared to most of them, with shining pale scales and grand wings, and the lightning crackling at the corners of his mouth was enough of a threat as he stood between them and Hirutani.

They all had the element of shadows; shadow, however, was not a volatile element, it was used for stealth reasons such as escaping or blinding an opponent, but it could not be used as an attack on its own like lightning or fire could.

"Back. Off." Seto growled, threateningly crouching down with the claws of his talons fully extended "He will fight this on his own. If he can't fight his own fight, he isn't worth following." The looked to each other at his statement, and escaped into the undergrowth of the forest.

"N-No stop!" Hirutani whimpered as the dark dragon closed his crocodile like jaws around the soft scales of his throat "I surrender! I surrender!" He chanted in panic.

The scene was familiar; Jou was pinning Hirutani to the ground, and the blue dragon had no way of getting out of this besides declaring defeat at the claws of his diamondtooth. But would the result change, after everything he had done? Although Jou had Hirutani's neck in his jaws so close that the tips of his razor sharp teeth were digging into the flesh and he could feel his carotid pulse through them; the bloodlust waned, a surrender is a surrender.

"This is your last chance to live." Jou said lowly to the other dragon as he stood up; he walked over him and started to step away towards Seto.

Hirutani, seeing the alphas back turned towards him, immediately flipped back onto his feet and lunged at him in a sneak attack.

In a microsecond, Jou paused, and although he kept his feet firmly planted he craned his head and neck and caught Hirutani's throat in his jaws again.

"Wait-" Hirutani's whimpered.

Blood sprayed the forest floor as Jou snapped his jaws around the vulnerable neck of his opponent; Hirutani went limp as his windpipe and carotid artery were absolutely shredded by the diamond teeth and sheer bite force, but Jou's pupils disappeared as the bloodlust returned and he kept biting down further and further until he had effectively sawed the other dragons head clean off in a mere few seconds.

Other dragons watched horrified, save for the reserved Seto as Jou ripped the former usupers head off and threw it against the leadertree; it fell to the ground with lifeless eyes still wide in shock and fear.

Jou looked to the dragons of his Rafter; the blood covering his maw, and his diamond teeth, glittered in the pale moonlight "I am your diamondtooth." He growled loudly, enough that his subordinates flinched at his tone "And I am done with this distrustful path that Hirutani had set you all on." He looked to the severed head before whipping his gaze back to the Shadow Forest Dragons "If any of you try to pull what he did, you will end up like him. Either bring your comments and concerns up to me and voice them, or if you don't like me as the alpha you can leave. If you want to challenge me, you will die."

He walked to where he was standing right in front of the leadership tree; his talons were inflamed with his dark fire as as was the corners of his mouth, the leaf litter was singed and smoldering where he had walked. As he stood in front of the leadertree, he stood on his two back legs and stood to his full height "I am the Diamondtooth of the Rafter of the Shadow Forest!" He announced in a near roar "I am the true Nightmare of the Forest! And anyone who stands in my way from here on out, does not receive mercy!"

The Rafter was at first silent in shock, but slowly, and surely, as they finally felt all the strength and confidence that exuded from their alpha in waves, they began to call his name out and cheer; a dark cloud had been lifted from the Shadow Forest Rafter, and although they were unsure of the times ahead of them, they were now sure they were in good hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Hoo boy, that was a hard one. I don't deal with fighting or diplomatic scenes too well. But there you go, Jou get's the shadow forest Rafter back.
> 
> So Seto's plan was basically that he would serve to stop Hirutani's followers from assisting their boss; Seto is, afterall, one of the greatest fighters in his own Rafter, he is ridiculously strong for a non-diamondtooth
> 
> Interesting tidbit for the future; when a dragon becomes a diamondtooth, they also gain an enhancement of their physical and magic abilities (their strength, speed, durability, elemental strength, ect is boosted by a certain amount) and also a special ability that is unique for each Rafter
> 
> Yugi and Jou have actually both been hinted at using their respective powers! Do you think you know what their unique powers are?
> 
> Please read and review!


	10. Civic Duty

Chapter 9: Civic Duty

"Uncle Kaiba, Uncle Kaiba, Uncle Kaibaaaaa." Mana Bakura chanted behind him as she bounded after the white dragon. Seto rolled his eyes but said nothing through the mouthful of buffalo fur in his jaws. "Uncle Kaibaaaaa." She called again, butting her head against his tail.

Sighing, he dropped the young buffalo and threw a glare over his shoulder "What is it?" He asked impatiently. The fledgling had been harassing him for well over a league at this point.

"Is it true your element is lightning?" She asked; her tail was raised up high, which was enthusiasm in young dragon body language; most adult dragons grew out of that habit because it was seen as a sign of arrogance.

"Yes." He confirmed, rolling his eyes "Why?"

"Well," she shuffled her talons around almost bashfully "can I see it?"

"...Why?" He asked, raising an eye ridge.

"Almost every dragon in the Shadow Forest has shadows as an element," She explained, wings twitching "the Diamondtooth and Hirutani had fire, and dad had wind," he assumed she meant Yami "I have wind too but no one would let me use it."

"...No one would let you use it?" Seto inquired "Why not?"

"Because wind would rustle the leaves too much," She said, then her tone got quieter "and the others kept telling me that real Darkstalkers only use shadows."

That made sense. The education of the fledglings was dealt with by the Academic Council of a Rafter; and while the Diamondtooth had the ability to pick who was in the Council, there was no real way of them enforcing what was taught. While most modern Rafters had a standardized testing system in place to make sure Fledglings were being taught the bare minimum at the very least, The Rafter of the Shadow Forest most likely had the archaic dragon education system in place. This old system was basically that Fledglings would increasingly take on every day duties such as hunting, patrolling, fighting, gathering, ect, taught by different adult dragons, up until they themselves became adults.

Teachers discriminating against outsider or hybrid dragons was commonplace back in the days. Not in a modern Rafter like Domino Peak, though.

Seto sat down and faced the young fledgling "Lightning can't be used the same way as wind," he explained "it's entirely volatile, much like fire, and has almost no practical application like wind or shadows."

"Practical?" She inquired, tilting her head.

"Wind is partially volatile and partially a booster," Seto explained "dragons with the wind element can use it to attack directly, or infuse it with their physical abilities."

"Like what?"

"Most notably, speed and flight. They use the wind to push them when they fly, but they can also decrease wind resistance and drag when they fly or even move."

"So can I use it with running?" She asked, eyes wide.

"Of course you can - with training. You should ask Otogi, he's one of the more skilled dragons when it comes to use of wind."

"But who's the best?"

"Yugi." Seto admitted; her eyes glimmered.

"Do you think he'd teach me?!" She asked excitedly, jumping onto her feet.

Seto opened - then shut his jaws. Yugi had a considerable amount of anger and resentment against her father Yami and opted to stay away from the family entirely because of it. "Well, he's the diamondtooth, he's very busy." He answered simply.

"I ask him!" The wyvern chirped, then appeared flustered by the hatchling sound as she looked back to her shuffling talons "Can I still see your lightning?"

He shook his pale head "No," he answered simply "lighting is different from fire in the sense that it has to have a target, it will choose one regardless if you meant for one or not - it can't just go as far as the user wants like ice or fire, it will connect to something eventually. Whether it be a tree, the ground or another dragon."

"Oh." The young wyvern replied simply. Seto turned back away and picked up the buffalo again, continuing to carry it to the camp. It had been several weeks since he'd helped Jou regain control of his Rafter, and he returned without too much of a hitch - Yugi wasn't happy with his sudden departure for a hunting trip that yielded relatively little prey for the amount of time he was gone, but it wasn't like Seto going off and doing his own thing was new.

As he approached the nesting area, he saw the two adult Bakura's were walking together and conversing, neither of them having their offspring with them but Ryou was carrying a hare and Bakura was clutching a pile of plants, probably herbs as Darkstalkers can't subsist on plants. For being from a traditionally backwards Rafter, Bakura had assimilated relatively effectively, the only quirk he seemed to retain was he and his older children would occasionally retreat from the main nesting grounds to the forested border much as their diamondtooth had when he was there. The silver dragon had explained that he wasn't comfortable being the in the open plains, he felt too exposed.

Considering just how suffocating the Shadow Forest was, Seto couldn't quite blame him.

Dropping the buffalo at the prey collection point, Seto continued to his own nest, his wings and jaws sore; with winter approaching he and all of the other able-bodied adult dragons were rushing to make sure they had secure provisions for the winter; the human side of the Rafter was working day in and day out to make sure their crops were stored and their livestock were strong enough for the winter. Last winter hadn't been a kind one, for a scrum of roving outsiders decided in the early days of winter to raid them, and although they drove them off without any casualties they loss a good amount of live stock, and they were near starving in the last days of winter.

So this year they were proverbially on their toes about it.

Mokuba was basking in the nest; when he saw his older brother approached he sprinted out with a squeak, practically tackling his brother in the chest, "Hello to you too, little brother." Seto greeted tiredly, setting down in the nest to get some rest before he would continue to hunt and forage. The dragon chick whined for his attention and bumped his chest again.

Sighing, Seto pulled the other small dragon close and focused on his elemental core, he looked down at the chick and made the hatchling-attracting keening noise in his throat to prompt his tiny sibling to look back up at him. When their eyes met, his own eyes started to glow, and as did Mokuba as he supplemented him with magic. Mokuba made a happy squeak in response.

Seto rested his head on his talons and closed his eyes, not quite sleeping but relaxing his entire body nonetheless, just barely paying attention to his surroundings.

"Dad, dad, dad!" He heard Tozokuo chant as he bounded after one of his parents. He wasn't as energetic as his sister, but he was clingy in comparison, likely being a bit of a slow grower compared to his twin. There was an 'oof' and a tumble sound coming from Bakura, likely his fledgling son tackling him to play fight.

Seto cracked his eyes open enough to see Bakura frustratingly try to shove Tozouko off, but also resigning to play fight back. Mokuba was watching as well, seeming intrigued. Perhaps he wanted to join them, as Seto wasn't one to play fight.

"Go you dad!" Tozokuo growled playfully, wrapping his front talons around the back of Bakura's neck, who simply rolled his eyes.

Mokuba suddenly looked back at Seto, his blue eyes wide "Dad?" He squeaked.

Seto's eyes flew open and he practically jumped onto his feet at his brothers first coherent word.

"Dad!" Mokuba squealed happily again, as if to set in to stone that Seto had in fact heard him correctly the first time.

"I'm not your dad." Seto told the white dragon chick, almost flustered "I'm your brother, Mokuba. Can't you say 'brother'?"

"Dad!" Mokuba repeated, likely not understand completely what family roles were. He was too young to comprehend guardianship and siblings, all he did know was that other hatchlings called their male caretakers 'dad' so he wrongfully assigned his older brother that title. Also, he wasn't developed enough in his new verbal skills to even say the word brother.

"Oh just… quiet down you." Seto grumbled, pulling the hatchling between his talons and tucking him by his side under his wing, draping it over him so he'd take his mid afternoon nap. He ignored the weird feeling in his chest that continued to grow and spread as Mokuba continued to squeak the word he just learned.

\---

Seto walked carefully down the cobblestone street of the village, carrying Mokuba in his arms. Both of them were in their human forms with Seto wearing an off-white long sleeve robe, and Mokuba in a similar garb just smaller, the boy wasn't an infant anymore so he couldn't just be swaddled.

In human form, Mokuba actually looked more like their father Gozaburo than Seto; having the same black hair with stormy blue highlights, and stormy blue eyes, although his skin was tan rather than the pale that both Seto and Gozaburo had, so Seto assumed it must have come from their mother. His hair was starting to grow out more, and beginning to get a spiky look to it, but it was too early to tell if it would stay that way or not.

With winter approaching it was time to keep Mokuba in his human form so his survivability was more assured, but this year would probably be another nightmare of Seto struggling to balance his duties as a Lieutenant and finding proper care for Mokuba, because as a human toddler he couldn't be left in a nesting area like a dragon chick could.

"Hey Kaiba!" He heard behind him; he turned to see the healer Marik approaching with haste, not quite running but clearly in a rush.

"What is it Zephyr?" Seto asked, Mokuba stirred and buried his cherubic face into his brother's shoulders, murmuring but staying asleep. Seto adjusted how he was holding him as Marik caught up to him.

"The diamondtooth is requesting our presence, there's a political situation going on and Yugi wants all of his consul." The healer explained; Seto groaned aloud.

"I can't leave Mokuba alone." Seto explained, although it was partly an excuse because he didn't like handling political situations - at least, not in a group setting. He always felt like when he was merely part of Yugi's consul in a political climate he was nothing more than a figurehead, something meant to always stand besides his leader but never having much of a say in any matter. He much preferred it when he was sent to handle foreign relations on his own.

Marik put his hands on his hips "Just give him to either Ryou, or Yami Motou, for the night, just like you did last year." He rolled his eyes.

Mentally cursing, Seto merely nodded "Where is this meeting, the council hall?" He asked, already deciding to give his brother to Ryou for the night, because he knew Yami's mate Bakura didn't have the patience for children that weren't theirs.

"No," Marik shook his head, tucking a stray strand of sandy hair behind his ear "the diamondtooth den."

"The diamondtooth den?" Seto repeated, blinking. The diamondtooth den was seldom used for political reasons unless…

"This is a meeting intended with all present in dragon form, the visiting party is of the Rafter of the Shadow Forest."

\---

In the old days before dragons truly embraced their human sides, they all lived in scattered nests and caves across their respective Rafters territories. In current times, dragons stayed in villages at night in their human forms, there would be a nesting area but this was mostly for dragons who had eggs, or who were taking care of chicks outside of winter. This system worked because it helped them advance in a community setting where they could farm and trade better, and kept them in relatively the same area so communication was also made easier.

However, even modern Rafters still had a dedicated diamondtooth den; this was almost always the biggest den or cave in the territory. For the Rafter of Domino Peak, this was a large cave in the middle of Domino Mountain; a large outcropping that jutted from a cave entrance at least four times the height, and twice the width of the average adult dragon.

The cave inside was spacious, with stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites sticking up from the cave floor. At the end of the cave there was a rushing waterfall that fed a large pool of crystal clear water and branched off into several venous streams of water that intricately weaved around the cave floor. Above the waterfall, there was another stone outcrop, but this one was smooth and relatively flat. This was where the diamondtooth would sit or sleep if they regularly used this den in dragon form.

Now, however, Yugi sat between a near perfect semicircle of stalagmites as he addressed the fellow diamondtooth and his emissaries, at least that's what Seto saw as he walked into the cave. Marik would be joining him soon, he went to drop off Mokuba with Ryou, and said he also needed to 'grab something' before he came to this meeting.

Seto saw that standing near Yugi was his mate Mizaki, and the Lorekeeper Ishizu, not conversing with the officialdom of the visiting Rafter as they waited for the rest of their consul. "Ah, my Lieutenant, Kaiba, has arrived." Yugi said dryly to the visiting Rafter; the tricolored dragon always tried to seem more mature and professional around visiting ambassadors, but he hadn't yet grown to suit a serious tone and always seemed to sound annoyed when he tried.

The white dragon saw he had the backs of the Shadow Forest dragons facing him, and he instantly recognized Jou; who kept his eyes on Yugi but his wing twitched a little, by his side was a lusterless brown-to-tan gradient dragon with black markings around his golden eyes, and at his other side, surprisingly, was the dragon he recognized as 'Miho'.

Silently Seto walked up to be on Yugi's side; he nodded respectfully to the three visiting dragons but dare not look Jou in the eyes lest he hint to their familiarity. In the weeks since Seto had seen the Shadow Forest dragons, they all looked much better than before, even Jou had an air of brazen confidence and tenacity. Miho had recovered greatly from her captivity, having regained size and now stood tall and proud besides her diamondtooth, her eyes almost as intense as his.

"Where is Marik?" Yugi asked his Lieutenant.

"He'll be here shortly." Seto answered simply.

Yugi grunted, then looked to the visiting diplomats "These dragons are the leadership of the Rafter of the Shadow Forest," he began, unaware of Seto's true knowledge "Diamondtooth Jounouchi, Lieutenant Nosaka, and Sunset Shin." Yugi introduced, Seto narrowed his eyes but not in a display of intimidation, but because he was confused, wasn't Kujaku the Lieutenant?

"We've come to collect our healer." Jou began, his voice was surprisingly smooth, like creek water over river rocks, and he had a little bit of a soft, if cocky, grin, and unreadable eyes; Seto guessed this was the tone of voice and demeaner he chose to use for diplomatic missions. It was quite the change up from the playful jabberer he was used to seeing.

"Marik should be collecting him and his mate." Yugi said, Seto noticed him glance a bit to the corner, likely not ready to address his brother by name.

"Ah, Yami is from here isn't he? He resembles you." Jou said, flicking his tail.

"...Yes." Was all Yugi could say.

'They look like they were hatched from the same egg' Seto thought sarcastically, wrapping his tail around his talons.

"But I digress," Jou stated, looking to his Lieutenant and Lorekeeper "I am back in control of my Rafter and the dictator who drove them away is no longer a problem, so I've come to personally assure them they are welcome and safe to return."

"Are we, mutt?" A voice from the mouth of the cave said, harsh but slightly soft; Ishizu gasped softly to herself, not expecting such a tone directed at a diamondtooth of all dragons. Seto looked over to see Marik had returned, and he had Bakura and Yami in tow.

"Bakura." Jou greeted, he was unbothered by being addressed so disrespectfully, in fact he seemed relieved. Silently but with sureness in his step Bakura padded over, side-by-side with his mate. "It is good to see you again."

"It's good to see your dumbass didn't get yourself recklessly killed in the name of pride." Bakura greeted back, the other Shadow Forest dragons seemed indifferent to his blatant disrespect, even if the Domino Peak dragons were perplexed at this shameless display of insubordination.

"You know me." Jou shrugged, walking over and brushing his cheek against the taller dragons, who merely rolled his eyes - Bakura must have been the only dragon in the Shadow Forest who wasn't physically affectionate to the 4th degree. "The Rafter is safe now, Hirutani is dead and his close followers are banished, you can come home now." He assured, looking to the dragon pair.

Bakura looked down to the ground slightly than back at his mate; Yami nuzzled his neck comfortingly and twined his tail with his, as if to encourage him. Bakura gave Jou a long, hard, although sad, look, before he finally said "I'm sorry alpha."

Silence.

Jou blinked his red eyes softly, perturbed "Sorry…?" He inquired.

"We won't be coming back to the Shadow Forest." Bakura stated, for once he seemed tactful with what he was saying. Misaki and Jou gasped, but Shin didn't seem surprised, the older dragon was wise in his years and experience after all, he probably saw this coming.

"But Bakura you- you're a Shadow Forest Dragon, a Darkstalker you're- you're our Underbrush." Jou almost stammered.

The silver dragon sighed sadly, his head hung slightly low "I was the healer for many years. I have been nothing but loyal, alpha." He lamented "I may not have been the kindest dragon, but I have always been a healer before anything else. I've personally treated almost every dragon in our Rafter, even the ones I couldn't stand. I treated them all equally, unbiased in their medical care. But..."

Yami nuzzled his shoulder as he paused.

Bakura took in a deep inhale "But the courtesy was not extended to me." He ended off his statement in a growl "It was bad enough that even when the alpha position was shifted away from Pegasus, the bigotry was not, you may have cracked down on it, but it didn't go away. Dragon who'd lived long enough continued to treat my mate and my children, especially my daughter, wrong. Do you know how many times she would come into my den, crying or upset, because the other fledglings, adults even, pushed her around for being a wyvern, or forbade her from using her own element because it was wind?"

Seto frowned to himself, perhaps this was why the young fledgling was so energetic and precocious now that she was in the Domino Peak Rafter - she was far more Windrider than Darkstalker compared to her brother, she didn't have to be ashamed here.

"I know this isn't entirely your fault, Jonouchi." Bakura continued, sighing "This bigotry existed the entire time our Rafter has, and twenty years isn't enough to get rid of it… But when that bastard Hirutani stepped over you, the other dragons either flocked after him or were too afraid to say anything about it, and he wasn't even a diamondtooth." He straightened up, looking down at Jou "For years I gave everything I could to the Rafter of the Shadow Forest… but even with everything I did for them, they couldn't stand up for me or my family. And I'm not going to take that."

The silver dragon rested his head ontop of his shorter mates head, draping his wing over him as well, Yami nuzzled back likewise, placing his talon ontop of his "I'm sorry, alpha, but the Rafter of the Shadow Forest betrayed my family, so they betrayed me. It is no longer our home."

Yugi's eyes were wide even for him at the bold statement the now ex-Underbrush was making.

Yami looked over his shoulder at his younger sibling "If you would take us Yugi, we would like to stay here. We will leave if you do not want us to, though." He said, his tone was respectful and soft.

"I..." Yugi began, Bakura's renouncement of his Rafter had caught him off guard, but remembering where he was and who he was with, Yugi regained his composure "You and your family are always welcome here, Yami." He said, standing up straight; Seto caught a glimmer in the young leaders eyes. Perhaps he was starting to forgive and forget? Or maybe he didn't want the thought of leaving an entire family to fend for themselves for the winter. Only time would tell what his intentions were.

For a minute Jou just stared at the ground, his diamond teeth gritted together, however, he exhaled sharply and lifted his head back up "I respect your decision, Bakura." He finally said, morose "I wish you would stay with us, I wish I could prove to you that our dragons can change, that we can change for the better. But I'm not going to force you back when your priorities are with your family."

The red-eyed dragon walked forward and affectionate rubbed the top of his head under Bakura's chin, although the healer did not push him away he rolled his eyes again.

"Don't be so sentimental on me, you stupid mutt." The healer said, although he sounded annoyed there was a hint of something else in his tone, something even he couldn't hide; no matter what he said, he could never completely deny that he would miss his old home, any maybe even Jou himself.

"I'll miss you too you rude cunt." Jou said back; Bakura started to chuckle and brushed his chin against the top of the alphas head before pulling away.

Yugi cleared his throat, Jou snapped back to where he had been earlier "I'm sorry this meeting held no real benefit for you, Jounouchi."

Jounouchi nodded, still downtrodden "We don't have a healer now… Bakura had no living students." Seto saw Yami and Bakura both flinch at what he said; healer students were picked when they were fledglings, meaning that if Bakura did have a student, considering his age, they must have died while still young.

"If we manage to survive this winter, times will change.. We're trying to advance, but it hard to catch up to other Rafters when we're so far behind on times." Jou trailed off, shifting his talons.

"You want to modernize?" Yugi asked him, Jou nodded.

"I think we've been stuck in the past and our own traditions for too long." He confirmed. "We thought that sticking to our outdated practices made us stronger than the other Rafters… but it's killing us now." He sighed "Too many innocents dragons have suffered..." There was pain in his tone, Seto wondered if he was thinking about his destroyed clutch and their mutilated dame.

Yugi hummed "I think there's a situation in which we can all benefit..." He began, looking up at his fellow Diamondtooth, shooting sideglances at his own counsel.

"And what situation is that, Motou?" Jounouchi asked, wrapping his tail around his talons as Miho narrowed her eyes a little at the wyvern before them.

"What if our Rafters allied?"

\---

"I can't believe you would make such a big decision on the spot like that, without consulting us first none the less!" Seto angrilly said to Yugi as he stood with a more solemn Marik and Ishizu; all of them were in the council hall of their village in human form.

The tricoloured man crossed his arms over his plate covered chest "I did not realize Bakura would decline returning to the Shadow Forest Rafter." He simply stated, although his tone was firm and even, his right hand fiddled nervously with the dagger hanging around his waist.

"Your concern is noble," Ishizu told their leader, her arms behind her in an almost parade rest "but with this winter ahead of us, having over one hundred additional dragons is… a strain." She said.

"I think this will benefit us in the long run," Yugi pressed "You see, we've been trying to expand our village for years, but we lack the most needed resource for housing - wood. Their territory is made up almost entirely of the stuff when our own only has a few clusters of spindly softwood here and there. Their Rafter is so archaic they don't have a human village or the basic knowledge on how to build one."

"I don't know… You saw what they did to Bakura and his family, what they did to themselves in the face of a dictator, who's to say they won't mistake our kindness for weakness?" Marik pointed out, biting his lip.

"Haven't you ever heard to keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Mana and Tozokuo are already loyal to us and they've barely been here for two months, as is Bakura and he's a stubborn adult." Yugi continued, he sat down on the chair reserved for the leader, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

"And just how are we going to keep an eye on them? They're known exclusively for being sneaky and conniving." Marik challenged "Especially that leader of theirs - look how young he is! He's bound to be impulsive and brash."

'You don't know the half of it.' Thought Seto ammusingly.

"We need to keep Jounouchi especially close," Yugi lamented "in the end, the Rafter of the Shadow Forest is still a Rafter - they follow their leader."

"Alpha." Seto corrected automatically on impulse.

"-..." Yugi raised a brow at him, but cleared his throat and continued "They follow their alpha, they will always follow the dragon that's in charge, that's how all dragon groups are from the most basic fledgling scrum to the largest society on this continent. If /he/ if on our side, so will they."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Seto asked impatiently - he knew that Jounouchi meant no harm to them, but it didn't mean he was going to look the other way when a sudden alliance was made.

Yugi looked up to his tall Lieutenant "You." He answered.

"-What?" Seto replied.

"You are the best when it comes to political relations," Yugi said, standing back up as he walked over to his peer "you've always been able to negotiate or straight-up intimidate other dragon groups into doing things in our favor. If you personally keep an eye on the Shadow Forest diamondtooth, he's bound to not flip on us."

Seto stared down hard at Yugi, perplexed, his blue eyes widened in the surprise of the order.

"I need you to just keep a close eye on Jounouchi, and the progress we make with integrating the Shadow Forest Dragons into our ways. If you personally feel like something is amiss, I want you reporting back to me, and from there we will decide if they're worth rehabilitating or not."

"I can't believe you'd just drop all of this on me." Seto growled, standing over Yugi threateningly; the shorter man was not swayed.

"I'm not doing this out of spite, Kaiba." Yugi said, looking up at him in the eyes "I'm doing this because you're the best option we have."

"And you're not?" Seto challenged, hands curled at his sides.

"They could see an vulnerability in our command structure if I'm always busy with them and not with the affairs of own Rafter, not to mention… You're the only dragon besides me who's strong enough for this job. Jounouchi maybe younger than us… but he's still a diamondtooth; all of his physical magic abilities were boosted the moment his teeth changed to diamonds. You're the only non-diamondtooth dragon who comes close to that type of strength." Yugi admitted, obviously begrudgingly. Seto was angry, but the validation to his skills still stroked his less than modest side.

"I see I again barely have a choice in this matter." Seto sighed, he looked back to Ishizu and Marik.

"Best case scenario, our Rafters ally to the point of joining and we become much stronger than before, and the Shadow Forest Rafter survives" Yugi told his council.

"And what's the worse case scenario then?" Marik asked.

Yugi's magenta eyes flashed "The Shadow Forest Rafter dies out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Another long chapter. In this one, Bakura lets his true feelings show (him and Yami are actually quite the physically lovey-dovey couple, but this is again probably because the whole Shadow Forest Rafter is very physically affectionate)
> 
> Mokuba thinks that Seto is his dad! Really this is a nod to the Japanese version when Seto as a child says he will have to be Mokuba's father. Here however Seto finds it flustering. He himself probably didn't even call Gozaburo dad when he was alive.
> 
> Looks like Miho is the new Lieutenant of the Shadow Forest Rafter! What happened to Mai? And how will Kaiba handle having to deal with the integration of the Shadow Forest Rafter?
> 
> Also, Seto is really strong for a normal dragon. A diamondtooth dragon gets a boost in abilities when they become a diamondtooth, but Seto is pretty much at their level without a boost if that will tell you how strong he really is. I mean, he's the blue eyes white dragon for gods sake


	11. Make a Wish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING SEXUAL CONTENT THIS CHAPTER

Chapter 10: Make a Wish

"Your brother is such a bleeding heart." Bakura muttered to his mate as he saw the Shadow Forest Dragons being lead around by Otogi around the human village of Domino Peak that they were currently in. Bakura say inside their den- house and was watching through the windows. In his arms he held one of his sons, Bakari. Bakari looked as much like him as his brother Atemu looked to Yami, except his skin was tan. Perhaps it wasn't too much of a surprise considering that he had passed Bakari's egg.

It was night, a few days after Jou agreed to have the Shadow Forest Rafter integrated by the Domino Peak dragons, although there was a lot of protesters, most of them were too weary of their diamondtooths wrath to protest too much. Most of the Shadow Forest dragons were still in their dragon forms, but they were being shown the in-and-outs of how villages worked and how they were supposed to function as humans to maintain one.

"He only wants to help people, dear heart." Yami said as he sat on the edge of the bed, holding their daughter Bastet and feeding her the human formula with some kind of cup with a funnel attached. "Yugi's always had everyone's best intentions in mind."

Atemu and Kamilah, the two babies that had Yami as their dame, were asleep in a cradle-basket on the table; those two were angels. Unfortunately, the two that Bakura had been the dame for proved to be absolute nightmares and almost never slept. Bakari wasn't even hungry, all he wanted to do was pick at Bakura's tunic and make noises as if to spite his exhausted father.

Huffing, Bakura plopped himself on the bed besides his mate "Those stubborn idiots can't be modernized, they'd sooner die of starvation just like they always do." Perturbed, he rested his head on Yami's shoulder as Bakari squealed at them. "They're not going to get better by being allied with Domino Peak - they're just going to make this Rafter worse."

The tricolour haired man shifted how he was holding Bastet so he could put on arm over his stubborn mate "Have some faith dear heart." He consoled, looking down at Bastet, whose eyes were finally droopy "I trust Yugi, and I trust Jounouchi, I believe the Rafter of the Shadow can change for the better."

"How can you say that? After everything they've done to you, to our children, especially Mana." Bakura scoffed "Not to mention, your brothers too kind, and Jounouchi's fucked up once who's to say he won't lost control a second time?"

"Yugi has a kind heart - a kinder one than I would have, I have too much pride for that." Yami admitted "I knew since he was young that he would make a better Diamondtooth than me."

"Anyone could be a better diamondtooth than you, you're a little bitch." Bakura muttered, Yami simply rolled his eyes "I'm serious, you couldn't even handle life with that rebellious scrum you used to run with. It didn't take much work on my part to get on top of you either." He nuzzled his neck playfully at the suggestive comment, but his mate simply shot his shoulder up to bump against him.

"I'm serious Bakura, Yugi may not have been the first born, but he was always meant to be the leader." Yami insisted "You just want to complain."

"Damn right I want to complain. The plains are stupid. The Domino Peak Diamondtooth is a runty bleeding heart. The Shadow Forest Diamondtooth is a dumbass mutt. And being human sucks." Bakura listed off the biggest points is his very long list of complains, and he had no shortage.

His mate chuckled softly, making the center of Bakura's chest twinge "At least we're more used to it than the rest of the Shadow Forest Rafter." He tilted his head a bit to kiss the taller mans temple, which in turn made Bakura blush; said healer mentally cursed the increased human capacity for emotional depth they just didn't have as dragons.

Being a healer, ever since he was a fledgling student to the previous healer, Bakura had to take human form every now and then because he had to interact with other healers or go to Society cities in order to get the medicine and medical supplies he couldn't get on his own in his own territories, not to mention healer and lorekeeper was pretty much the only roles where one was completely required to learn how to read and write, even in a backwoods Rafter like theirs.

"Being human isn't so bad." Yami told him, Bakura scoffed automatically at that.

"Are kidding me? We're so weak and soft and fucking slow. We can barely use our element, and we can't even fly." Seeing that Bakari was finally asleep, Bakura stood up and carefully strode over to the table, where he placed his infant son in the cradle basket with Atemu and Kamiliah.

"Being human has its own advantages." The tanned man said as he mate returned to the bed, still scooting up close to his side.

"Like what? Not having to eat an entire moose to survive? Having to wear blasted clothes?" Bakura snorted, crossing his now free arms.

"We get to feel things more." Yami reminded him - as dragons, their emotional complexity was simple. Survival was always their top priority, individual survival and the survival of their species. Hunting, eating, sleeping, fighting, and caring for offspring were really the things that mattered most to any given dragon. Even mating and forming a life-long bond with said mate was a survival strategy, as it increased the likelihood of survival. In their human form, their emotions were much more complex than that, deeper, more complicated. They felt all kinds of things they either didn't feel as a dragon or felt to a much lesser extent.

"I don't need to be a human to feel things," The white-haired healer muttered, resting his cheek against Yami's head "I've been pissed off since I angrilly peeped inside of my egg."

Yami laughed softly at that and nuzzled his shoulder, which once again caused the white-haired healers face to turn red against his will, and the embarrassment just served to make him even redder. Bloody human emotions. "It's amazing your mother dealt with you so well."

"She was a healer before me, we all have the most patience of any dragon." Bakura scoffed back.

"Oh, and what happened to you then?" The tricoloured haired man teased, making his mate bump his shoulder.

"Oh shut up - is Bastet asleep yet?" Bakura asked as he looked down to their daughter. The tanned baby had her eyes closed and besides her puckered lips still smacking together a bit, she appeared asleep. Yami nodded before he got off and carefully carried the baby over to lay with her siblings "About time."

"Don't be so impatient with them Bakura, it's not like any of us have had an easy time adjusting to being awake during the day and sleeping at night." Bakura didn't reply to that as he flopped onto the bed, resting his spiky white head on the pillow.

"I don't know if I'll ever get used to this whole, human thing..." Bakura muttered as his mate lay next to him.

"You'll get used to it, I believe in you." Yami leaned over and kissed his forehead - Bakura felt his entire face go hot at the gesture, and scowled knowing he was blushing again "You're awfully cute as a human, you know."

Bakura tried to shove him, but Yami held his shoulders down laughing softly "Oh shut up you mountain fucker."

"Hmmm," Yami hummed and smirked, looking down at Bakura with playful magenta eyes, the look made the inside of Bakura's stomach knot up "you want to be the mountain then?"

Bakura tilted his head in confusion.

"Urgh," Yami muttered at his mates obvious lack of knowledge to innuendo "do you want to make love?" Seeing the confused look still swimming in his mates brown eyes, Yami corrected himself "Do you want to have sex - to mate, I mean?"

"..." Bakura looked over to their cradle basket of babies "I think we have enough for this clutch." He answered, clueless.

"Human males can't get impregnated." Yami rolled his eyes; backwoods dragons...

"Then why even mate?" Bakura snorted, crossing his arms even as his mate straddled him.

"Want me to show you why?" Yami asked softly, gently stroking the long white hair of the former underbrush, seeing the mixture of confusion and reluctance, he added "I promise it feels good."

Bakura tightened his mouth into a thin line, but then sighed loudly; might as well, it's not like they were going to be falling asleep anytime soon with their internal clocks still adjusting to being awake during light hours. "Fine..." He agreed.

The tanned man tucked some of Bakura's hair behind his ears before leaning in to kiss him deeply, Bakura closed his eyes and returned it; thankfully, kissing was something he was a little more familiar with. He felt his body tingle as Yami pulled him up until he was half sitting up, leaning back against the pillow, before moving his hands to play with the cloth that was wrapped around Bakura's waist. The feeling of the article being messed with caused him to turn even more red.

He mentally cursed the fact that he was pale skinned just as much as he cursed the human tendency for modesty.

Bakura felt teeth nibble at his lip, and when his own lips parted something wet and warm pushed into his mouth - Yami's tongue. His eyes widened slightly at the new sensation. If he were watching rather than experiencing it he might consider it gross and vulgar but it was… actually pretty hot. On instinct, he wrapped his own tongue with his and lifted his arms up to wrap over his mates neck. His eyes closed as a warm cloud of emotion seemed to sweep over his entire body.

When air was needed, Yami pulled away, Bakura opened his suddenly heavily-lidded eyes open just enough to see there was a string of saliva between them. Seeing it made him feel embarrassed but, in a good way, in a way that made his skin feel hot and his loins tighten.

"You're a natural." Yami said as he moved his lips downwards to plant multitude of light kisses and nips to the healers neck.

"Oh shut uppp." Bakura groaned the tingly sensation that seemed to verberate from his neck all the way down to his crotch. They'd mated a fair few times as dragons in order to impregnate each other during mating season, and it felt good then, but this was something else. Perhaps there was something to this human sensitivity after all.

As Yami was kissing his neck on hand moved down to undo the loincloth around his mates waist, and once it was untied he tossed it to the floor; the feeling of exposure caused Bakura's whole body to suddenly tense up "Relax dear heart." Yami whispered into his ear, then began nibbling it making Bakura groan, and lifted his pale mates legs to wrap around his waist.

Almost hastily, Yami undid his own loincloth and set it aside, now both of them were now just in their drape-over tunics. "I'll top this time." Yami said, nuzzling his neck.

"Fine." Bakura answered, his voice coming out as somewhat of a huff.

Face still buried into the side of Bakura's neck, Yami began rocking his hips dryly against his, pushing their members between them, the friction shot bolts of pleasure through them as they both hardened. "Fuck." Bakura hissed, arms clinging over Yami's neck as if for dear life.

One hand drew away from Bakura's hip and reached up to roll a nipple between the thumb and index finger, making the pink numb harden. Bakura's exhaled heavily at the new sensations. "Did you do this often before you became my mate?" Bakura asked in a breathy, but teasing tone.

"We'll talk about it later." Yami chided, squeezing the nipple slightly hard in warning, making Bakura shift where he sat. He removed his hand from the nipple and reached back down to stroke both of their members at the same time, making Bakura moan loudly enough he had to muffle the sound into Yami's shoulder as not to wake up their nearby sleeping brood.

Yami hummed loudly as they hardened and grew under his steady strokes, and stopped when precum started leaking from both. He looked down to his hand and covered his fingers in the watery fluid "This'll sting a little." He told his mate as he leaned over to kiss him again, when Bakura kissed him back he scooted back a little bit and reached down, pressing a finger against the paler mans entrance. Bakura's body stiffened at the feeling, and Yami slid his tongue back into the others mouth to distract him a bit as he inserted the first finger in slowly. Once it was fully inserted he curled it a bit.

Bakura pulled away from the kiss and shakily breathed out "That's such a weird feeling..." He said, unwrapping his arms from Yami's neck as he lay back.

"Just try to relax." His shorter mate soothed, curling the finger again, making Bakura cringe. He thrusted it a few more times before adding another finger, he increased girth made the white-haired man audibly hiss. "Shhh." Yami comforted, pecking his lips quickly.

"U-Urghh this is so much simpler when we're dragons." Bakura cringed as a third finger was added. Mating as a dragon was as simple as just mounting.

"I know, but this is nice, I promise." As if to prove a point Yami changed the angle of his fingers as he thrusted them - they hit a gland inside that made Bakura's eyes dilate and a deep moan to escape him. "Thereee we go." Yami said with a cheeky grin that made Bakura want to slap him.

He continued thrusting his fingers until Bakura's inner walls relaxed to the intrusion, he removed his fingers and spat into the same hand, palming himself with the saliva, with his free hand and grabbed his mates hip to bring him closer, who wrapped his legs over his waist in return. He pressed the tip against his entrance, which caused Bakura to breathe in tightly in anticipation, before slowly pushing inside.

"Fuckkkk." Bakura groaned painfully at the foreign intrusion, tightening his legs over Yami's waist. He whimpered quietly when the other was fully inserted, his eyes now watery against his will. Yami stopped as he waited for Bakura to adjust, noticing his discomfort right away he capture his lips again in a deep kiss.

Bakura kissed back and closed his eyes, glad he had a distraction from the pain he was feeling. Sure, mating as a dragon wasn't comfortable, but it didn't hurt like this. Perhaps it was because human males couldn't give birth like dragons could.

His body slowly began to go slack as it adjusted to his mate, Bakura brought his arms back up, one arm hooking over Yami's again, but the other simply gripped his mates shoulder. "Ready?" Yami asked, just barely pulling from Bakura's lips.

Bakura simply nodded. Yami pulled back until he was half sheathed before pushing back in, hitting that spot inside that made Bakura moan. He continued to do so slowly, until he gained rhythm and momentum.

"Oh shit-" Bakura cursed as white started flashing behind his eyes, his grip on Yami's shoulder tightened until his nails were digging into the tan skin and he was drawing blood, not that Yami seemed to notice nor care. Pressure seemed to building in his stomach from his spot being hit multiple times, until his body was shaking with his release getting closer and closer.

"Y-you're tight." Yami grunted, and began stroking Bakura's member, clumsily at first but he quickly got in tune with his thrusts, which were becoming deeper and faster with his own impending release.

Close to being overwhelmed with his hypersensitivity, Bakura hid his face into the side of his mates neck "I-I'm close." He murmured against damp skin, clinging to Yami with all of his strength.

"I love you." Yami whispered back.

Such a simple statement that he's heard many times seemed to take on a whole new depth when combined with his new emotional state and the activity they were doing, it sent Bakura absolutely careening over the edge. "Yami-" with a gasp and a shout he came in his mates hand, his body went entirely rigid while he did so, and then paradoxically went slack immediately after, his mind in a fog that just barely registered his mates thrusts becoming harder and more desperate.

"Bakura!" Yami shouted as he followed his mate into release, coming deep inside of him. Bakura was too overwhelmed to do much besides twitch and groan quietly.

Yami panted heavily, sweat rolling down his temple. Bakura's legs had dropped from his waist and his arms were basically limp over him. He looked down at Bakura's expression and couldn't help a chuckle. He slowly removed himself and flopped next to Bakura on the bed, pulling the blanket over them to cover. "I told you." He whispered, kissing his mates cheek quickly, and stroking his hair while the other collected himself.

Awareness returned to the healer, who was still a bit swamped "...Whoa." He said simply, rolling onto his side to face Yami. His face was still red, but this time it was more of a haze across his cheeks rather than all-encompassing as it was earlier.

"Great, right?" Yami inquired, stroking Bakura's white hair.

"Yeah..." Bakura said, resting an arm over Yami's waist "It's so different… But it's, pretty bloody great."

Yami nodded in agreement, before yawning. "We can work on it together to make it even better over time, but, let's get some rest dear heart."

Bakura nodded without saying a word, and even as he closed his eyes his heart was still racing, the most powerful yet comforting mist of euphoria filling his chest. "I love you." He muttered to Yami as he drifted off, and again even though he'd told Yami this thousands of time the phrase just… felt so much stronger now.

\---

"You guys hunt alone?"

"Sometimes in pairs, but mostly alone yeah. Why, how do you guys hunt?"

"In packs." Jou explained proudly to Otogi, making the blue eyes white dragon behind them roll his eyes.

Seto followed his orders to Yugi and indeed kept close to Jou's side, even though the black dragon in all of his power and authority was still a total jabberjay. He was oddly popular with those in the Domino Peak Rafter that he'd already interacted with. Even Yugi appeared to genuinely enjoy the younger diamondtooths company.

Ryou had seen him, and he gave Seto an odd look but said nothing. Seto still wasn't sure how he was going to explain himself to Ryou, but with the silver dragon hearing about what had gone down in the Shadow Forest Rafter finally, he would probably understand things better if his Lieutenant just told him the truth, but, Seto would cross that ravine when he came to it. For now, Jou and a few of his dragons were discussing hunting methods with some of the Domino Peak dragons who were still awake this late at night.

It had been discussed between Yugi and Jou that for this winter, the members of the Shadow Forest Rafter would take refuge in the human village for the winter, in exchange they would give materials needed to expand the village, and be taught how to build and maintain. Although, it looked like because of their nocturnal leanings, they would take most of these duties at night. Already, some of the adult Shadow Forest dragons were taking guard at night in place of Domino Peak dragons, and some of the older adult dragons were taking to help around with the farming since they weren't as up to fighting and hunting as their younger counterparts.

Transforming was a sore spot for most of the Shadow Forest Rafter, even the most open minded of them opted to start out just taking their intermediate forms for now and would start taking human form once they were a bit more comfortable… or until the very last second most likely. Most of them didn't even know how to transform and had to be magically assisted by Domino Peak dragons.

All of the Shadow Forest Rafter hatchlings were transformed into humans now since it was so late into the fall, which made their parents anxious as they could hardly recognize their children because they weren't used to seeing their hatchlings as babies yet, and didn't know what they themselves looked like as humans. The only dragon chick that remained in dragon form was Shizuka, who Jou absolutely refused to let out of his sight for any reason. She was currently standing between her sires talons, looking around excitedly but staying in place.

Jou also seemed to blatantly refuse to take anything other than dragon, having not even taken intermediate form once since the alliance was first suggested. Seto hadn't talked to Jou one-on-one since the alliance became a thing, because they were always in a group.

"Why hunt in a pack, we're the biggest predator there is." Otogi pointed out.

"Because wolves hunt in a pack." Jou answered simply, as if Otogi was familiar with the sacred connection to wolves that Darkstalkers insisted on.

"But, we're not wolves…?" Otogi tilted his head slightly in confusion.

Jou waved his tail a bit and his new Lieutenant sauntered up to his side, her blue eyes glittering in glee. "Miho, why not grab a few of our dragons and we'll show this lone wolf?" He asked her kindly, an edge of mischief in his tone. "Meet us at the plains about two leagues south of here?"

"Of course diamondtooth." The purple Lieutenant answered and pushed passed Otogi, rubbing her tail under the green dragons chin flirtatiously.

Otogi seemed flustered at this, which Jou was snickering at. At first, Seto thought that the black dragon had chosen his peer for a new Lieutenant because his options of who to trust were severely limited, but he could quickly see that Miho, although a bit ditzy, had a way with dragons that was hard to describe. Perhaps it was her natural beauty? Some kind of enhanced charisma? Whatever it was, she always seemed to catch the attention of other dragons, including straight females and gay males, and bend them to her will with very little convincing.

Otogi, even with his flirting ways, had nothing compared to her charm.

Jou bent his head down and on cue, Shizuka climbed on top of his head, squeaking excitedly.

"You're taking a hatchling with you on a hunt?" Otogi inquired before Seto could, Jou merely shrugged.

"We're just watching, Miho will lead the hunt." He raised his wings "Now, we should get to those plains for this hunt."

\---

From atop one of the outcrops of Domino Mountain, Seto and Jou stood and watched as Miho got the dragons, including Otogi, organized into a 'pack', Shizuka was now resting between her sires wings, intent on playing with one of the many spikes that protruded from his back.

"What is the point of forming a pack?" Seto asked the red eyed dragons as they watched. Miho lead the group as they stalked a group of baffalo.

"Just watch." Jou said as he lowered himself down to lay on his belly, tucking his legs under him.

The group then began to separate, forming a circle around the buffalo group, they were far enough away that with the slope of the foothills that they were one, the buffalo couldn't see any of the dragons, from the circle Miho began approaching the buffalo; once one of the whooly creatures notices her it automatically made a loud noise alerting the rest of the group which stampeded into different directions in an attempt to elude her.

And while the buffalo escaped her, it did not elude the rest of of the group that had formed a circular barrier around the entire group - two dragons each jumped on a buffalo and one would grab it from the back to slow/hold it down while the other would bite the throat. And while some buffalo escaped just because of their sheer number compared to the dragons, they had still caught about five fully grown buffalo, which would go a long way for a human winter.

Seto blinked at the display of teamwork "I see… so this way, all of you catch something, and the prey is less likely to escape. But why pair off? We're a lot bigger than a buffalo."

"We don't have buffalo in the forest, we have moose and deer." Jou explained "Those things can and will gore you with their antlers, we attack two-on-one to reduce the chance of getting stabbed." Seto nodded in understand - his own father Gozaburo had died after getting gored by a buffalo he had been hunting.

Seto sat up, wrapping his tail over his talons and he shook away that thought. The past is in the past. He looked over to see Shizuka stumble off of Jou's back, but her sire managed to catch her with his wing tip and place her carefully on the ground unharmed "What happened to your last Lieutenant?" Seto asked; he saw Jou's expression immediately drop.

"She..." Jou began sorrowfully, he untucked his talons and stretched his front legs out to rest his head on top of them "She wasn't well after the incident with Hirutani. He maimed her, he took away her ability to fly. Now - we're forest dragons, we don't fly as much as you do, but… losing something like that, it's like gouging a dragons elemental core out." He explained, closing his eyes slightly in grief "And our entire clutch was killed except for Shizuka, so anytime Mai looked at her, she was reminded of the little ones that we lost. She was like Bakura I guess, she hated what Hirutani did to us, she hated what the Rafter allowed him to get away with, she felt like she had been humiliated and hurt to the point of no return. She didn't want to be my Lieutenant anymore, she… She didn't want to be a member of the Rafter of the Shadow Forest anymore."

Seto lay down on his belly as well, tucking his talons under him as he listened intently.

"She left. She said she was done… She kept saying over and over how pathetic she was and how sorry she was, and no matter what I said I couldn't sway her, she she just walked off and disappeared…" Jou opened his eyes again, and in the crimson depth there was a heavy layer of sadness "She wasn't my mate, Kaiba, but I loved her, and now our daughter may not ever truly know her." Shizuka chirped, and Jou draped his wing over her tiny body "She was my best friend, the only guidance I had when I became leader. And now she's gone." His glittering teeth gnashed together in despair "I just… I just hope wherever she is..." He suddenly looked up to the great expanse of sky above them, where bright stars dotted the blanket of darkness that went on beyond where the eye could see. He was entranced almost, and Seto wondered if it was because he didn't get to see much of the sky while he lived in the forest under the trees "I just hope she's okay. I hope she finds the peace she needs… The peace she deserves." He continue to gaze at the starry sky.

A star fell.

To be continued…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: So the rating has been changed to M because of sex. So, some more lore - dragons are powerful, but their human sides has its own advantages. The ability to read, write, build and use tools. And while their strength, speed, durability and elemental usage is diminished greatly (obviously) their emotional intelligence and depth skyrockets. In their human form, dragons just experience so much emotionally. This is why they tend to fall in love faster when they're in human form. Now, dragons aren't apathetic or anything, it's just that their emotional depth is simplistic because they're more focused on survival. While they can fall in love, they're carnal desires are still entirely based on having babies. This is why most dragons don't have sex outside of mating season while in dragon form, because, well, only their human selves have sex for pleasure instead of procreation. Hope that makes sense?
> 
> Okay so, the children so far (reminder that for the most part, dragon chicks surnames come from their dame, as in the dragon who passed their egg, any dragon regardless of the gender can be a dame or a sire)
> 
> Ryou Bakura and Marik Ishtar
> 
> Son: Namu Bakura.
> 
> Daughters: Malika Bakura, Amane Ishtar.
> 
> Yami Motou and Yami Bakura
> 
> Sons: (1 deceased son), Tozokuo Motou, Atemu Motou, Bakari Bakura,
> 
> Daughters: (1 deceased daughter), Mana Bakura, Kamilah Motou, Bastet Bakura


	12. Least Lonely Guy in Town

Chapter 11: Least Lonely Guy in Town

"It's time to go." Seto told Marik as the gold-dusted dragon herded his three hatchlings out of the nest. Ryou was on guard duty at the farmland right now, leaving his mate alone with their brood as the nest area was being officially cleared for winter.

"I know Lieutenant Kaiba, quit your bitching." Marik hissed at the white dragon - Seto narrowed his eyes slightly, either the encroaching winter was getting to the healer, or Bakura was starting to rub off on him. There was evidence to support both really.

Malika and Namu jumped out of the nest, squeaking excitedly as Marik gently pushed them out with his tail. Amane, however, was still just lying in the nest. "Come on honey," Marik said gently as gently roused her onto her feet with his tail - the hatchlings yellow eyes appeared heavy, almost hollow, not bright and lively like her siblings. Although sluggishly, the dragon chick slowly hobbled after her siblings.

Seto did not miss the worry that was darkening Marik's eyes as he lead his brood out of the nesting area, lagging behind slowly in step to make sure Amane kept up.

He looked over his shoulder to see Jou trying to bask in the sunlight, which wasn't working too well considering the wind chill, one of his wings were extended while the other one was at his side, draped over Shizuka who was shivering. "That means you too." Seto said, approaching the Darkstalker hybrid "The nesting area is cleared for the winter, it's time to go to the village."

"Alright." Jou yawned and stood up.

"You realize you have to at least transform your hatchling." Seto deadpanned, Jou looked down slightly at his tiny chick, who was still shivering between his talons as she tried using him to shield herself from the intense plains winds. He figured in a forest the winds wouldn't get this intense with the trees buffering them.

"I don't think I can prompt her transformation." Jou told him.

"Do you even know how to transform?" Seto asked him - he knew the Shadow Forest Rafter had stigma against transforming, so almost all of them couldn't do it on their own yet; but all dragons regardless of upbringing have the basic instinctual knowledge of how to transform that came once they moved into the fledgeling stage. They just needed to be prompted the first few times.

Jou looked to the ground quickly before looking back up at the windrider hybrid "No." He answered gruffly.

"Not surprising." Seto commented "I'll prompt her when we get back to village." He started walking out of the nest, following the trail that lead to the village. He needed to conserve energy for flying later. Jou followed closely behind before he caught up, walking side-to-side with him, his daughter was being carried on his back.

"Don't you feel weird when you're human? When you're a dragon?" Jou asked.

"It's the same thing, stray." Seto replied simply "All dragons are humans and all humans are dragons, so I don't see why your Rafter has a problem with it."

"You know," Jou began, looking up at the darkening sky, in the days he'd been in the plains territory he'd grown oddly fond of the night sky "they say that humans and dragons used to be seperate."

"This another old legend?" Seto asked flatly.

"Well do you want to hear it or not?"

"Might as well."

"The legend goes that back in ancient times, humans and dragons were at constant war with each other. The dragons were powerful, but the humans were resourceful. Both could use magic, with dragons being elemental magic users and humans being spellcasters. They didn't know what they were fighting about, they'd been fighting each other for so long they didn't know anything else. Now, one day a dragon and a human met. The story kind of uh, diverges from here, some say the human saved the dragon and some say the dragon saved the human, but one saved the other."

"Kind of like how I saved you from your own stupidity." Seto snided, Jou didn't acknowledge that and just continued with his story.

"After one saved the other, the dragon and the human discovered that they didn't hate each other, they didn't want to fight at all. So they talked, and found they had a lot more in common than they thought. They even had the same type of elemental magic that they used."

"Let me guess, the specific element was lost to time and translation as well?"

"Look all that matters in this story is the conceptual aspects, okay? Anyways, the dragon and the human were alike in every single way except for their species. They found they were basically the sam, and as time went on and they strengthened each other in every way, they found they could not bear to be apart. The decided to talk to their respective clans to reveal this bond that they have formed, and maybe this would usher in peace between the two races."

"I bet that went well and their clans were completely understanding." Seto remarked sarcastically.

Jou smacked his back with his wing before continuing "They were both attacked for their 'treachery' within an inch of their lives, and left for dead. Being so close to death, even with the distance between them, they found they were thinking each others thoughts, and with their last bit of strength they sought each other out. They had so little life within in them when they met up, they decided to share their strength between them to keep the other alive, and this selfless act formed a magic contract between them - and the two became one."

Seto nodded as he kept his eyes on the path, just listening.

"They were initially in their intermediate form, and their thoughts didn't run together, but almost as quickly as they merged physically they merged on every other level. All of their thoughts, feelings, and intentions matched until they were one being in every way. They could even shift between their human and dragon forms, still with only one consciousness. This first transforming dragon, being a magic user and spellcaster, was at the time the most powerful in the land, having the sheer strength of a dragon but the cleverness of a human."

"And how did this extend to everyone else, then?" Seto asked.

"As time went on, this human-dragon was tired of the wars between the two races that made them up, and decided that enough was enough. Using a powerful, archaic magic spell that has been lost to time, the human-dragon enchanted the entire land beyond what the eye can see, and every dragon fused with a human and vice versa, and all of their offspring had the same ability to shift between the two races, and this lineage continued and continued, and resentment faded between ones human and dragon side until we forgot we were ever separate in the first place." Jou finished as they finally came upon the village.

"Legends are ridiculous things." Seto said as he came up to his hut, in his talons he grabbed a tunic he had hanging off of a clothes line, and shifted back to his human form fast enough that he pulled the tunic over himself before the other dragon could get a good enough look at him without it.

"Woah, that's what you look like as a human? How come your fur and eyes aren't the same?" Jou asked as he crouched down low trying to get down to Seto's level.

Seto rolled his eyes and crossed his arms "It's called hair, not fur, stray." He corrected "And our human forms rarely reflect on what we look like as dragons, now, hand Shizuka to me so I can prompt her to change."

"How come you pulled that weird pelt on?" Jou asked as he used his wing to pull Shizuka off of his back and pass her to Seto.

Seto huffed slightly as he held the dragon chick in his arms - a dragon chick was roughly the size of a large housecat, but they were unfortunately not quite as light as one "It's called clothing. Humans have an advanced sense of shame."

"Shame?" Jou tilted his dark, spiny head.

"Humans don't like being exposed." Seto explained simply, then focused. His eyes started to glow as he focused on the ambient magic he was feeling from the hatchlings elemental core, grabbing onto the tendrils of the baby dragons unrestrained magic he prompted the gland to trigger her transformation.

Shizuka chirped loudly as her eyes glowed, Seto quickly grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around her as her body shifted from a dragon chicks to a human infant. Jou's eyes were wide as he looked down at the pale baby in Seto's arms - her eyes were now a bright shade of brown, and the feathery tufts of hair sticking from her infantile head were rust-like in color. "Oh wow - is that, is that really Shizuka?" He asked, marveling at the now extremely tiny bundle in the Lieutenants arms.

"You saw her form change for yourself, stray." The brunet scoffed "Now, are you going to allow me to prompt you to transform too?" Jou immediately shook his now massive head hard, making Seto impatiently click his tongue "You're trying to make your Rafter more progressive aren't you? What kind of hypocrite would encourage everyone else except him to change?"

Jou's red eyes flashed "This hypocrite." He retorted indignantly "Besides, we already talked about this with Yugi, start with the children, then the fledglings, then the adults."

"Will you change with the adults then?" Seto asked, knowing full well what the black dragon would say. Jou was silent for a moment, and shifted his talons as he slowly lowered his head to look back down at them.

"I… I can't..." He explained "I'll do all the night duties expected throughout the winter, but I'll do it as a dragon."

"You could die if this winter is harsh you know - do you have any idea the sheer difference of energy needs between and human and a dragon? If this winter is particularly scarcee, you - as a complete carnivore, could die trying to sustain yourself in that form." Seto explained.

"Don't talk to me like I'm a fledgling! I survived this long, I'll survive this winter." He stood up a little until he was sitting back on his hind legs.

"That's because prey animals tend to hide out in the forest during the winter," Seto explained caustically, glaring up at the Darkstalker hybrid "prey doesn't typically stick around the plains for the winter season." Their territory was always inflicted with harsh, preyless winters, while buffalo had thick whooly fur to keep warm, the winter snow would absolutely blanket all of the grass, and the buffalo would migrate elsewhere.

"I'll live." Jou insisted stubbornly.

"Are you really putting your pride before the safety of my Rafter?" Seto challenged, stepping forward, leering best he could with their present size difference "Us feeding you is robbing us of resources." Feeding one dragon in one day is like feeding seven humans in one day, which makes the biggest difference during the winter.

Jou looked away stubbornly, maybe a little guilted "I'll talk to Yugi," he said "Me and the adult dragons who won't transform will feed ourselves - we'll fly back to the Shadow Forest for a few days at a time if we must."

"That's just wasting more energy." Seto mumbled this time, realizing there was no discussing here, either the Shadow Forest diamondtooth was too stubborn or too unintelligent or both, he wasn't going to be swayed.

Shizuka whimpered in his arms, catching Jou's attention. "What's wrong 'Zuki?" He asked the infant as he brought his large dark head close to her. She looked up at him curiously and reached up with her chubby baby hand, and grabbed the ridge of his nostril "Aack-!" He tried dragging his head away carefully, and she whined when he was out of grasp.

"And you expect me to just take care of your hatchling for you? You realize I'm a Lieutenant right?" Seto asked irritated "I have my own baby brother to take care of, I'm not equipped to take care of two, I'm not a dame or a sire so I don't produce a surplus of supplementary magic." In fact, he should have been taking care of Mokuba right now, but his little brother was with one of the many caretakers of the Rafter.

"I'll tell you what, I'll stop by as often as possible and supplement both of them." Jou offered.

"Why not give your offspring to a Shadow Forest Dragon?" Seto asked; and the dark look that crossed the other dragons eyes reminded him of exactly why. He didn't trust most of his Rafter yet, Hirutani hadn't acted alone when the rest of Shizuka's clutch was destroyed. The fact that he entrusted the life of his heir to a dragon from a different Rafter that he'd only met a season ago said a lot.

"You know why." Jou said lowly, shifting his talons "Will you do it?"

Seto rolled his eyes a bit, but then sighed "I'll do my best, but remember that my Rafter practices communal raising - we have people whose sole job is to take care of the hatchlings when their parents or caretakers are busy. We'll also readily hand off offspring to other parents." While Seto's primary caregiver had been his father, Gozaburo was always busy as the Lieutenant, so he was also taken care of by most of the adults at the time for long periods, including but not limited to Otogi and Mizaki's parents. Yugi, after his mother had died, was also communally raised rather than adopted since he was so close to the fledgling stage anyways.

"I… I'm okay with that." Jou agreed reluctantly "I'm sorry if I'm frustrating you because I'm as stubborn as a mule but… Transforming is off the table for me, that's just how it is."

Seto was about to retort when he felt something cold on his face; both of them then looked up to see that snow was starting to gently fall "Winters first snow has arrived." Seto said simply, wrapping the cloth around Shizuka to cover her better.

Jou said nothing, watching the the flakes falling from the open sky.

Seto shook the flakes that accumulated on his thick brown hair "I'm going to grab Mokuba, this is my hut if you want a general idea of where I might be during the winter."

\---

"Please..." Ryou heard his mate whisper quietly; he looked over to see Marik was leaning over the wooden cradle that held their brood. Frowning, Ryou put the book he was reading down and walked over.

"Marik?" Ryou said softly, reaching over and putting a hand on the sandy-haired mans shoulder. Marik slowly looked over his shoulder, and Ryou frowned further to see his mates lilac eyes were as dark as mulberry with melancholy. "Sweets, don't kill yourself with worry."

"How can I not?" Marik almost scoffed, but with his current dejection it only sounded like a soft sob "I'm a healer and I can't save my own daughter..." The statement made Ryou have a catch a sad noise in his own throat.

"Don't say things like that Marik… it's not over yet. She's still here with us." He hugged over the healers shoulders as he looked down at the cradle where the three children were sleeping. All three were limp as they slept, but Amane was damp with sweat and breathing slightly heavy and fast compared to her siblings. Her skin was a medium tan between his and Marik's skin colour, but there was an ashen cast to it, an attestment to her current weakness.

He heard Marik sniffle and looked down to see the healer bring his hands up to cover his face, no doubt to hide tears "She's not getting better, Ryou." His body started to shake and Ryou struggled internally not to do the same "Nothing I'm doing is working..."

Ryou blinked, feeling his own eyes wetting as he watched their sickly daughter, and his heart twisted further and further and his tears swelled as she reminded him so much of her namesake, his own late sister, Amane Bakura.

His memories were hazy to the point of being shapeless in his minds eye, but the one thing that was clear in his past was the sorrow felt by his two fathers after his sisters death. She too was a runt, and had always been fragile compared to him and their peers, and on their third or fourth winter had gotten very sick, and ultimately perished within that season.

Would his daughter, who shared her name, also share her fate just tragically much sooner?

He hid his face into Marik's sandy hair, silently sobbing with him.

\---

He hated the forest, at least normally he would, but right now the forest was beautiful.

Seto had neutral feelings for most of the seasons, but he had a particular relevance for the season of winter. Winter was the season of rest in every sense of the word; creatures and plants would rest and hibernate, saving their energy for the coming spring, but the less lucky or weak creatures would die. There was rest for all, regardless of it it was permanent rest of not.

It managed to be so cold and dark, but beautiful in it's own way. Seto, as a leucistic dragon, finally blended into his surroundings. Even this forest.

The forest was neverending with it's thick foliage, but there was just enough break in the tree's to leave the starry night sky and full moon visible above him as he walked down the path in his dragon form. The trees, the ground - everything was covered in a blanket of snow, creating a contrast against the dark shapes and shadows usually offered by the forest, as the snow reflected the cold light of the moon.

He inhaled the cold air sharply, not minding the tang that just seemed to refresh his lungs as he regally strode down the never ending path. His wings were outstretched, and the forest was completely silent, not even his footsteps made a sound.

"You look a lot like snowdrift out here, you know." His dark companion said to him as they walked down the path. Jou had materialized out of the shadows to join him, it seemed.

"You look like a lump of rock in the snow." Seto said back calmly.

"You gotta admit, the forest isn't so bad." Jou offered, then looked up at the sky.

"Neither is the open sky." Seto replied, savoring the tranquility.

"No," Jou admitted "the open sky isn't so bad either."

/End dream/

\---

Seto sat up from the bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as the cold light of dawn filtered through his eyelids into his eyes. He opened them slightly as he looked over to the cradle where Mokuba and Shizuka were sleeping, thankfully they weren't awake yet. Carefully, he got onto his feet and changed into his village attire - it was a dark blue tunic with off-white pants and undershirt, metal wrist bracers, and brown leather boots and waist belt. Like Yugi, he also typically carried a weapon with him while in human form, he used a staff rather than a short sword.

Making sure the babies were still firmly asleep, the brunet Lieutenant walked out of his home. The entire village was coated by the snow fall of the night, but it was not actively snowing right now. The light was pale from dawn breaking, but was amplified by the whiteness of pure snow.

Seto was both surprised and not surprised to see Jou was curled up asleep next to his hut, he too was covered in a little bit of snow, meaning he'd fallen asleep only recently. He was still nocturnal, after all. Scoffing at the 'guest' slightly, Seto otherwise did not disturb him as he grabbed the metal basin he had leaning against his hut, which he held in his freehand.

He walked over to the well and carefully filled the basin, mindful of how heavy it would be once it was full. Perhaps if it was too heavy, he could just change to his intermediate form, since scale armor thankfully materialized over worn clothing. He grunted from the weight as he picked up the now three-quarters full basin; it was heavy, not enough to waste energy on transforming.

Walking back over to his hut, he went to the brick firepit and placed the large basin on top of the iron grate on top. Grabbing some of his firewood - old sticks he'd gathered weeks ago around the forested area - he put them into the pit, and kicked in some dried leaves. Sparking some of his lightning through his fingers, he zapped the leaves until they caught fire, and blew against them as smoke started to rise and the sticks underneath also caught fire.

"Lieutenant!" He heard a cheery voice behind him - he was still crouched, but he looked over to see Mazaki in her human form and an unknown female.

Mazaki as a human was somewhat similar to him, having brown hair, azure eyes, pale skin and elongated proportions, sometimes making him wonder if they were related in some way. Her face was displeased at the sight of him; it was no secret that she did not like him because of how cold and harsh he had been to her and the rest of their peerage back when they were young, and she especially did not appreciate how dismissive he was of Yugi back then and somewhat now. She was currently wearing an ankle length cream long-sleeved dress with a red-brown apron over it, and faded brown leather shoes.

The woman next to her he didn't recognize, she appeared around their age, maybe slightly younger. She had pinkish pale skin, long light purple hair that went down to the small of her back, and large, almost owlish violet eyes. She was wearing an off-white long-sleeved blouse, and long waist-to-floor yellow skirt, and she didn't appear to be wearing any shoes.

"Who requests me?" Seto asked, rubbing his hand together before standing up and facing the two females.

"Miho requests you." The purple-haired girl giggled, giving Seto pause.

"You can transform?" He asked, then glanced over the sleeping dragon next to his hut.

"Miho needed a little prompting, but I think I can take it from here." Nosaka said, linking her arms with Masaki. His eyebrow quirked a little; man he hated it when people spoke in the 3rd person. Mazaki cleared her throat, looking up at Seto harshly at his obvious disapproving demeaner.

He ignored her though "How come he can't transform then?" He asked, pointing at the sleeping Shadow Forest Diamondtooth.

"He can," Nosaka said simply "he was actually the first of our peerage to learn how to. He only did once though..." She trailed off, seemingly forgetting something.

"Interesting..." Seto trailed off; so Jou was capable of it in the past, that ruled out complete inability. He really was just stubborn then.

"Anyways," Nosaka blinked her eyes up at him with a grin "what are you doing now, Lieutenant? Miho should really go to sleep since it's the morning, but I'm just interested in the things that humans do."

"I'm heating up the water in the basin," Said Seto, looking over at the water that wasn't even steaming yet "I need to clean Mokuba and Shizuka before I pass them off to caretakers." He also needed to wash himself, not that he was going to share that information with these females though.

"You wash them with water?" Nosaka asked, blinking in surprise and she grasped her own hands in front of herself "Why don't you just lick them clean?"

"..." Both Seto and Masaki looked to each other in a rare moment where they thought/felt the same thing at the same time.

"... That works for dragons and other animals, but not humans." Seto simply replied, trying not to sound awkward "Human tongue is more… unsanity. Also, it's weird." He dare not mention that the tongue is human form is also used for more… lewd, acts between two people. She probably didn't know. Gods, would the Shadow Forest Rafter need a class on how intimacy worked as humans? He wasn't going near that topic, Ishizu can deal with that.

Miho hummed in thought "Okay..." She said.

"She and a few other of the adults in her Rafter have volunteered to take human forms and learn how to perform human duties, since Miho is a Lieutenant she needs to learn from you." Masaki stated.

The tall brunet cursed under his breath "I already have to deal with her scatterbrained alpha, and his newborn, don't I have enough extra duties?" He demanded, feeling the water with the tips of his fingers for the temperature.

"Diamondtooth Jounouchi is nocturnal and you are not," Masaki pointed out "You only really have to deal with him at dusk and a little into the night. You can always talk to Yugi though."

"Why so he can disregard all of my gripes and concerns?" Seto replied sarcastically "But, if it'll keep the peace, I'll show her what I can later, right now I have to deal with children." He explained "In fact, while I'm doing this, why not show her to the female bathhouse?"

Masaki's face turned slightly red, and she inhaled deeply before exhaling quickly. "Fine." She retorted, she pulled Nosaka's hooked arm closer to her and practically dragged her in the direction of the female bathhouse.

Feeling the water again, Seto pulled it off the grates quickly and carried it into the hut. Mokuba and Shizuka were still asleep, but not for much longer. Sighing, he lifted Mokuba to where he was sitting up; his baby brother whined as his sleepy eyes opened and looked up to him with a grumpy expression. "Good morning, little brother." Seto greeted, and he swore he heard the infant dragonishly growl at him. Chuckling, he pulled the tiny peasant robe off of the boy and put him into the watery basin, letting him sit on his own before crabbing a brass cup to fill with warm water and pour it on him.

"Having fun, beta?" He heard from his window, he looked to see Bakura in his human form leaning in through the window. He noted the healers scragglier than usual hair and dark marks on his neck.

"What do you want, Bakura?" Seto asked impatiently; why did everyone want to bother him this morning.

"Just checking up and making sure you aren't fatigued, Yugi really is working you for all you're worth huh?" The white haired man began, twirling a piece of spiky hair in his finger. He looked to the cradle to see Shizuka "Where'd the extra kid come from?"

"Your jabberjay of an alpha refuses to take human form." Seto stated stiffly, pouring water through Mokuba's dark hair, and grabbing a nearby cloth. "So his daughter doesn't have human parent right now."

"Former alpha." Bakura reminded "Just because those idiots decided to grovel to your Rafter for help doesn't mean I'm going back to them." He studied the auburn haired infant "Wonder where the red stuff came from?" He muttered, Seto didn't pay attention to that. "You know, Ryou's pretty convinced that Jounouchi is her dame and you're her sire, why'd you pull something like that out of your ass?"

"I didn't pull anything out of anywhere," Seto replied, annoyed "she's not my daughter - but you already know that don't you?. Jonouchi basically abducted me under threat of blackmail if I didn't go along with his lie."

Bakura blinked slowly "So I'm guessing that it was him I scented in your forest border?"

"Yes." He admitted in a deadpan.

"So… You shielded him?"

"Not shielded. I let him stay if he kept himself hidden."

"Wow," Bakura snickered "I guess your whole Rafter is full of bleeding hearts."

"Oh shut up Bakura, is there a specific reason you haven't left my presence yet?"

"Geeze, and Marik said only human females had that time of the-"

"Bakura." The brunet cleared his throat, he scrubbed Mokuba's neck with the cloth, making the tiny human boy giggle.

"Say, speaking of gross human stuff, you ever have sex?" The question caught Seto off guard, so he didn't justify that statement with a response "I have to tell you, I tried it, it's pretty bloody fantastic."

"I do not want to have this conversation with you." Seto said flatly, now just refusing to even look at Bakura.

"Oh wow. Is the big, strong, stoic Lieutenant of the Rafter of Domino Peak embarrassed?" The brown eyed man teased. Seto gritted his teeth angrily.

"I'm not interested in finding a mate." Seto told him "Now go away Bakura, I'm busy."

"Tch." Bakura tsked, and Seto imagined him rolling his eyes with a smug grin "Fine. If it flusters your poor virgin ears so much."

Seto reached his arm back without facing Bakura and zapped him with a very weak lightning spark, making the healer yip in surprise.

"Shit! Fine, your no fun anyways." He heard cobblestone footsteps as Bakura finally left him alone.

"I swear Mokie if anyone else bothers me this morning, I will turn into a dragon and swallow them whole." Seto said to his baby brother, who only laughed naively in response.

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors note: Some more dragon legends! This time, the fable on why dragons can take three forms.
> 
> So, Ryou has two fathers just because there's conflicting signs of who his father is. In DSOD his father was a white haired man who died when he was a kid, while in the regular anime his father was a blue haired man who was always away doing archaeology. So for simplicity's sake, these are two seperate guys and they're together, not that it really matters too much because they aren't going to show up in the story in anything other than passing mention. I mean, they're probably not dead they're just more likely not too involved with Ryou's life because he's an adult.
> 
> The human clothing varies from Rafter to Rafter usually. Domino Peak uses medieval European clothing, while the Shadow Forest Rafter (once more modernized) would wear ancient aztec style clothing (Which is what Bakura, Yami and their family wear). Bakura and Kaiba are like... besties, really. I like to think Kaiba respects Bakura's bluntness and Bakura likes Kaiba's no-nonsense attitude. Bakura calls Kaiba 'beta' rather than the popular fanfiction trope of 'priest' because he isn't a priest here and it's a contrast to the revered term 'alpha'.
> 
> Please read and review!


	13. Inheritance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: So, if you're wondering where I've been, I promise I didn't give up. I've just been busy, you see, I am moving soon and I''ve been trying to get my affairs in order (bills and such, work situation, ect) so don't worry, once I have everything settled I should be back updating normally.

Chapter 12: Inheritance

"Pe-ah-ple."

"It's pronounced 'pee-pull', actually."

"But there's an O, how come we don't sound it out?"

Seto pinched the bridge between his eyes as he closed the in frustration. He was glad he wasn't part of the education council because he did not have the patience for formal teaching. He was in the library with Nosaka, keeping the order of teaching her the more formal side of being a Lieutenant. While in olden days a Lieutenants main duty was to organize hunting and fighting patrols, things were different in modern Rafters. While big plans and projects were organized by the diamondtooth, a Lieutenant managed everyday operations such as law and order, and supplies. This required being literate, which the Shadow Forest Dragons were not.

"There's rules to pronunciation, but also language tends to evolve and even deviate from its own rules in certain instances, mostly because this language is an amalgamation of several pre existing languages." Seto explained, then closed that leatherbound book. They were about a month into the winter now, and while his fellow Lieutenant managed to learn a lot, she still had very juvenile habits when it came to reading, such as moving her lips when she was reading or pronouncing letters that are meant to be silent. He supposed, however, that she was doing well for someone who had no formal education, especially since most people take years to learn how to read properly.

Despite his earlier order of keeping an eye on Jounouchi, he ended up being around Nosaka more since they were the same position, and she had shifted into not being nocturnal anymore, she she could represent her Rafter during the day. Watch over Jounouchi was now mostly done by Yugi, despite the latters earlier protest of it, the two initially were professional with each other, but as the days went on and they had to be around each other more, they grew very friendly with each other, Yugi really just seemed to soak up friendliness of the other diamondtooth, and vise versa.

This however, didn't stop Jounouchi's refusal to take a form other than dragon, or from his sleeping right outside of Seto's hut during the day.

Nosaka sighed and picked up a scroll, opening up and seeming relieved that there were illustrations of dragons. "This looks like Diamondtooth Yugi." She sid, pointing to the illustration of the dragon.

"That is him," Seto deadpanned, unrolling the scroll fully "This is the genealogy book of the diamondtooth heirs for the past few generations." He put his finger on the circle that covered the illustration of Yugi, and slid it up slowly to the dragons above him "you can see here the heir apparent before him was Yami, who's crossed out because of his disappearance, their father was the heir before Yami but he passed away shortly before Yugi was hatched, and this is the late Diamondtooth, Sugoroku." He explained.

"Then who's this after Yugi?" She said, referring to the currently lowest circle around the illustration of a dragon fledgeling.

"That's Rebecca Hopkins, she's Yugi's heir presumptive." He explained, then moved his finger to point to the dragon that was linked with Sugoroku Motou "Here is his mate, Arthur Hopkins, and they had two children that survived to adulthood, one being Yugi's father and the other being Rebecca's mother; because Yugi's father was born first he, and his lineage, became heir apparent line."

"Presumptive…?" Nosake still looked a little confused; perhaps the apparent and presumptivesystem wasn't used in her own Rafter.

"An heir apparent is the automatic heir," Seto explained "and a presumptive heir is an heir who's status can be revoked by the presence of an heir apparent. Take Yugi and Yami for example - Yami was the oldest, so after their father died he was the heir apparent, but once he left Yugi was the heir presumptive; he was the heir, but he would no longer be the heir if Yami returned."

"Oh," Nosaka blinked "are all of the high ranks like that?"

"Only Diamondtooth and Lieutenant; for Lorekeeper and Healer, they choose a student." Seto explained.

"All of the higher ranks are inherited in our Rafter." Nosaka began "It's almost always father to son, the only time a female inherits is if there's no sons. Except healer, healer was the opposite, mother-to-daughter unless if there was no daughter." She explained, "That's how Mai became the Lieutenant, and Bakura became the healer."

"You Rafter is just so..." He sighed heavily, not wanting to have this discussion. It wasn't her fault it had been so oppressive, she herself having been a victim of it.

"But things are changing and… it makes Miho really happy." She said, smiling gently up at him with shining blue eyes.

"Yes, there's a reason 'old fashioned values' faded as society advanced." He said, rolling the scroll back up and putting it back where it had been, he looked outside to see the snow falling softly outside, when earlier it'd been rapidly swirling "The snow is letting up," he said "We can do something a little more within your realm of ability - how about organizing a hunting patrol?" He asked.

"Is there specific rules for the winter?" Nosaka asked, but she still seemed excited - Seto was the one who solely organized patrols during the day, and during the night they were being organized by Jounouchi.

"For the most part you choose adults without children, and fledglings who aren't attending classes." Seto explained "You gather up some people, I'm going to my house first. Meet me in front of the Council Hall." He ordered, before walking out of the library.

His skin prickled at the cold air, but not enough to form goosebumps. He pulled his buffalo cape more over him as he headed in the direction of his home.

As he came closer, he saw, to no surprise, that Jou was curled up asleep by his hut, as expected. About half of the Shadow Forest adult dragons had taken human form by now, but Jou still refused to transform.

Jou was laying down curled up, with wings drawn over his limbs and close to his body, and his tail wrapped around his side and over his muzzle. He appeared quite tranquil as he slept, even though he slept on top of and covered by piles of snow. As fond of winter as Seto was, the thought of sleeping in the snow while in his cold-blooded dragon form made his skin crawl.

He approached the snow-covered dark lump to make sure he was still breathing and didn't freeze to death - he was breathing slowly, but evenly and not weakly. Muttering under his breath about this dragons lack of intelligence, Seto went back into his hut and quickly changed into his off-white robe, which would be easier to change in and out of when he transformed into a dragon. He then put a buffalo cloak over it, and grabbed his brown leather satchel - it was large since he was in his human form, but he'd be able to harness it over his back in dragon form.

Leaving his hut, Seto headed towards the Council Hall and was relieved to see that Nosaka had already gathered up a decently sized patrol; besides them it consisted of Yami, Otogi, Ryou, and Mazaki. The fledgling group, already in their dragon forms, consisted of Nezumi, Rebecca, and Tozokuo, who all looked nervous, likely because they were in a hunting group that had two Lieutenants.

"Where do you want to start hunting?" He asked the lavender haired woman, who hummed and cupped her chin in her thumb and forefinger.

"The wind is going South..." She began, and turned South "If we go to the plains on that side of the mountain, we'll be shielded from the wind."

"Good idea Miho." Mazaki said, smiling "We can show you and the Shadow Forest fledgelings hunting techniques used by our Rafter because we usually hunt downwind." She explained.

"So does any dragon with wings." Seto retorted sarcastically; the woman shot a harsh glare at him, not that he was phased.

The adults stepped back several feet to make more room, and shifted to their dragon forms.

Grunting at how the winter air now hit him harder in his cold-blooded form, Seto moved his leather satchel over his back after putting his human garbs inside of it.

Nosaka spread her lavender wings high over herself, while her second pair of transparent wings hovered straight to the side parallel to the ground. "Shall we?" She asked the hunting group, who answered nonverbally with a variety of gestures. Nodding, Nosaka took a few leaps forward with her front talons taking the lead and her back legs kicking out before taking flight.

\---

"What are you two doing?" Otogi asked curiously watching Yami and Nosaka, who while walking in the snow were making constant twitching gestures while looking at each other.

"Claw-speak." Yami replied as he looked back to the green dragon.

The Domino Peak dragons were all confused.

Yami cleared his throat "Claw-speak is a nonverbal language." He explained "It's used mostly by deaf and mute dragons, but all Shadow Forest Dragons to learn so they can communicate night without losing stealth by talking. Claw-speak uses movement of the paws, wings, head, and tail to represent different words."

Seto supposed he shouldn't be surprised since the Shadow Forest Rafter hunts in groups at night, but most of what he'd learned about them was about their bigotry and actions regarding their bigotry. So to hear they casually did something so… communal, and intelligent, was surprising.

"Wow, that's pretty neat." Mazaki commented, her eyes sparkling. "You should teach it to some of us. The poor old Hopkins has had a hard time communicating with us since he started losing his hearing." Seto thought about it himself - deafness was an ongoing problem for the older members of their Rafter, the loss of communication often caused them to get infantilized, or pushed out of any regular duties and social circles.

Perhaps Mazaki had a point, he would talk to Nosaka about it later.

They came to a cliff-edge.

"So, how do you hunt?" Nosaka asked them.

"From vantage points," Seto answered before Otogi and Mazaki could "we swoop at the prey either straight from the air, or from the tops of cliffs, mountains, or trees, that way we're using not just our claws and teeth, but also our momentum."

"Sooo, like a hawk?" Nezumi asked curiously.

Seto nodded "Like a lot of birds or prey really." It was their traditional way of hunting, but it did carry risks, since they had hollow bones they were prone to breaking their rib cages upon impact, especially fledgelings, but most adults learned not to be so overzealous and not slam into prey to significantly reduce the chance of breakage. It was still very much a learn-as-you-go skill, as the dozens of healed fractures in all of their ribs would show.

Seto himself hadn't stopped breaking his ribs until he was… what, 130? And he was a prodigy of his peerage. It was a sensation… that he really didn't miss.

"Do you move spots if you don't see prey?" Nosaka inquired, breaking her fellow Lieutenant from his thoughts.

"From a vantage point this high we can see as far as we're able to dive - mostly if we go long enough without seeing buffalo we'll switch to the other side of the mountain." Seto explained; his eyes flicked upwards at the dark gray sky; it'd been a while since the snow had stopped, but there was some kind of pressure in the air that made his spines stiff. It was a weighty feeling. Perhaps this brief respite from the snowy weather was indeed a brief respite, and the snow fall about to come was going to be monumental.

Tozokuo was watching the plains curiously, his spiny back was arched and his tail was raised while his head was basically resting on his front talons. "Can't they see us from up here?"

"Buffalo don't usually check upwards for predators," Seto explained calmly "birds of prey are never a concern for them. They're conditioned against terrestrial predators, not airborne ones." I

"You'd think that the other animals would be used to dragons..." Rebecca chirped, curiously close to Tozokua and her voice was overly chipper, even for her. Her human half was in that age where amorous feelings started to surface after all.

Seto internally hummed. Most animals had adaptations against common predators; dragons weren't rare, and they'd been around presumably as long as everything else, and yet… dragons, and the rest of the natural world, always seemed to evolve outside of each others influence. It was an interesting phenomena, perhaps it was because nature was natural, and while dragons depended on nature, dragons were magical.

Tozokuo didn't seem to pay attention to what Rebecca had said to him though, he just continued to watch the plains; his wings slowly seemed to wilt by his side. Yami seemed to sense something that the other dragons didn't, and walked over to his son, draping his own lightning patterned wing over him. With what Yami lacked in size in body, he seemed to make up for in his wing span, something Seto hadn't noticed before given how much the former heir spent in his human form.

Tozokuo was mumbling quietly to his father, but not so low that Seto couldn't hear him. "Akef wouldn't like all of this snow." Yami had a verbal response that was too quiet for Seto to pick up, and then he curled his wing over his offspring and pulled him closer. Given to cold weather, it wasn't a strange sight. Seto didn't pay too much attention to any other exchange to two had, he felt the strange pressure continue and if he hadn't perfected inhibition control, he'd probably be fidgeting where he stood.

"Hey!" Nezumi chirped suddenly, not noticing the infantile sound he'd just made the fledgeling used the tip of his wings to point at a certain direction; narrowing his eyes slightly to focus, he noticed a small cluster of shapes. "Look! Buffalo?" He looked up at the other adults.

"Looks like it." Mizaki confirmed. "They're a bit too far away though, once they get closer."

"I could get it." Ryou offered softly; while the silver dragon wasn't the fastest flier among them, he was a very cautious type, he had the most stable and consistent diving form, probably being one of the first in his fledgling group to stop breaking his ribs. He would be a preferable candidate to teaching their hunting techniques.

Before anyone else could say anything, a harsh crash from above them reverberated for miles as thunder roared in the belly of the dark clouds above them. Seto released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. The odd sensation he'd been feeling was the prelude to the thunderstorm. Having lightning as an element, and presumably being half Stormbringer, he had an instinctual connection to lightning and thunder, similar to how the Winderiders of his Rafter had inklings when there were going to be dangerously strong winds.

"S-Should we really be hunting?" Nezumi asked, voice weary as he looked up as Nosaka.

The violet dragon also seemed perplexed "This isn't usually a concern in the forest… lightning strikes the tallest thing, and that's usually the trees..." She looked to the other adults.

"I haven't seen any flashes in the clouds." Seto dismissed, in spite of the tingling he felt in his spines, if he was in his human form his skin would probably have goosebumps. "But, if this buffalo gets closer, I'll catch it and we can go."

"If you say so, Lieutenant." Yami replied "One buffalo for a hunting party this size isn't going to be very impressive, though."

"We can always go to the outskirts of our territory." Nosaka reminded him "With only the night patrol doing hunting in that area, it isn't going to be over hunted."

Seto walked up to the edge of the outcrop, taking proper diving stance, his head low and hindquarters raised, wings stiff but lifted above his back. He watched the group of buffalo wander around the plains, no doubt sniffing for any grass that might be poking above the snow. Taking in a deep breath, Seto readied himself for his descent, watching the group wander closer to the mountain.

Suddenly, before he could make a move, Rebecca shot out in a sleek golden blur in the direction of the herd, diving in a less-than stable form.

BOOM!

When the thunder sounded overhead, A=all of the scales in Seto's body bristled and time seemed to slow down for him as he realized what the tingly feeling he had was alluding to. All he could see was the bright streaks zapping around the dark clouds, and an oxidizing smell, a smell similar to soldering metal, filled the air. His body moved without a thought in his head except for Rebecca's safety as he flew out at top speed towards her.

A blinding light appeared above him and he sharply inhaled and held it in as he tackled the golden fledgling mid-flight knocking her off course and hurdling towards the ground in a spiral, and Seto was struck.

He gasped as searing heat carved a path from the tips of his wings, across his spine to every individual nerve in his body . His body was completely stiff to its fullest capacity, but only for a split second, and just as soon as the stiffening came, it ended and his body became totally limp; his brain was slow in taking on details as he too fell head-first in a spiral to the snowy ground before him.

He could barely see that he fell on top of a dark orange body before he could hit the ground, all he felt was a searing cold pain that stimulated every pain receptor, a pain so overwhelmingly powerful he couldn't even react to it.

He felt his limp body being rolled onto the snow. His eyes were open but he couldn't make out many details with his eyes. He could hear many panicked voices around him, and felt that he was moved onto his side.

He smelled… Burning. Charring.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" He heard a hysterical Rebecca chirp in distress over and over again, he could hear Yami trying to talk her down.

"We need to get him back to Marik and Bakura!" Ryou said.

"Is he… Is he even alive?" Otogi whispered harshly, in shock.

To spite him, Seto managed a low growl, but it took whatever energy he had left.

"But how are we going to get him back?" Tozokuo asked, a surprisingly calm tone given his age and the situation they were in. Maybe, tragically, mortal injuries and death weren't unfamiliar to the young Shadow Forest Dragon…

Seto tried to stand on his feet, move his wings - anything. But while he could feel his body, he was unable to control it. He felt like a ragdoll, limp and unmoving. Or, more precisely, he was reminded of an incident when he was a chick, he'd jumped into a rushing stream not knowing any better, the churning currents easily overpowered his younger self, and when he was caught beneath the waves in the undertow, he couldn't move his body at all. He could feel the powerful pull of the water around him, but he was unable to move against it.

He doubted Gozaburo was going to pull him out of this one.

"Try to push him over my back, I might be able to carry him back." Mazaki offered. He would have snorted if he could - Mazaki was above average size, being bigger than the others, but Seto was much larger than any of them, there was no way she could carry him.

He felt two snouts press at his side and attempt to roll him over a scaly bulk beside him - he was guessing Mazaki.

"Can't we prompt him into his human form? He'll be easier to carry!" Nosaka suggested, likely because their efforts at moving him weren't succeeding.

"We can't, humans can't deal with traumatic damage to this degree! If we change him, he might not s-survive." Yami rebuked, his voice becoming quieter with every word.

It was at this point Seto's consciousness started to fade, he was vaguely aware that he was formed onto his feet, and made to limp foreward, he was wedged between two dragons - Mazaki and Nosaka, maybe? His massive wings, which held most of his agony, were draped over them to keep him from falling over.

They didn't get very far when his ability to perceive things through his vision began to reappear.

He saw his front talons limply dragging through the snow, he could see somewhat of his leg, it had… streaks. Not a scale colouring of streaks either, but bright reddish-pink scar-like cracks between new cracks in his scale plating. It was the very flesh beneath his skin. 

The streaks seemed to be in a pattern reminiscent of lightning and veins.

He heard the furious beating of wings and a sudden crunch in the snow.

"I came as soon as I heard!"

"Y-Yugi." Seto tried to growl, but he doubted he was heard.

"Here, put him on my back, I'm strong enough to carry him" Was that Jounouchi?

Seto was wondering how and why they were here as he felt himself being rolled onto the back of the black Diamondtooth. He felt himself being lifted off the ground, his body now wedged between the alpha's wings. If he wasn't so disoriented, he might be surprised that Jounouchi, who was smaller than him, Ryou, Otogi and Mazaki given his younger age, was able to easily carry him on his back. He kept his eyes shut, the pain was giving him a migraine to just add onto his pain.

"We don't have time to bring him back - bring him closer to me." Yugi said, Seto felt Jonouchi walk over "Place him on the ground, belly-down." The black dragon did just that, and very gently Seto felt himself once again lying on the cold snow, the chills in his body aggravating the pain further, but soon numbing it also.

"You'll be okay..." He heard Jou whisper to him, if he could he would have swatted at him.

"Anzu, I need you to take the fledglings away, leave me and Jou alone with Lieutenant Kaiba."

"But Yugi-"

"Now." Seto rarely heard Yugi use his authoritative tone, and never towards his mate. "They don't need to see what we're about to do." He heard crunching in the snow and the sound of beating wings, a little bit of Rebecca's crying.

"Kaiba, I need to to hold on just a little longer, okay? This is going to hurt..."

What was more pain at this point?.

Gasping, Seto opened his eyes again, he was lying on his left side so only his right eye could see. He saw a concerned, cringing Jou standing over him. As was Yugi, but Yugi - his eyes were beginning to glow white…

Still panting a bit, Seto dared look over his shoulder at his wings, which even in the snow felt like they were on fire with agonizing pain.

He wished he hadn't.

His once pristine, blue-highlighted white wings were now frayed into backened ribbons. They looked like burnt paper barely hanging from the framework skeleton of his wings.

His eyes widened and he froze, staring at his wings for what felt like hours. But really, it was only a split second, and the shock of what he saw shoved him right into the blackness that had earlier been a fading mirage to him.

\---

A sharp claw prodded into his side. "Wake up." A gravelly voice he recognized all-too-well demanded.

Seto struggled to open his blue eyes, and he jolted with a gasp as consciousness seemed to hit him all at once rather than slowly come to him.

"Well, good evening beta." An almost amused voice told him with a snort; he looked over see Bakura in his dragon form greeting him.

Blinking in confusion, Seto steadily looked down at his front talons - no pink streak marks.

"You've been out for a while - you hungry or thirsty? We've been supplementing you with magic but you need physical sustenance- are you even listening to me?" Bakura stopped himself near the end of his explanation as he noticed his patient was too busy looking over himself to pay attention.

"... What happened?" Seto asked flatly. Slowly, he lifted his pale head up to stare down the silver healer, who was unaffected by the cold stare.

"You've been recovering in the Healer Cave for the past three days." Bakura stated as-a-matter-of-factly.

"I was struck by lightning." Seto growled, flexing his front claws.

"Yes, you were." Bakura confirmed, sitting upright with his tail wrapped over his front talons.

"Cut the crap Bakura - I was scorched by lightning! I looked at myself - my wings were burned beyond repair! There's no way I can be here without a scratch on me just after sleeping for three days." Seto told him, perplexed. While he was relieved beyond proper explanation that his wings, and he himself, was whole. However, it simply didn't make sense. He should be covered in scars from nose-to-tail, with crippled wings.

While dragons could in fact regenerate, this regeneration was extremely limited, and like many other reptiles only applied to their tails. They couldn't regenerate limbs, and especially wings.

Bakura also looked perplexed "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, hi own tone edging on confusion "Yugi and Jounouchi brought you in like this - you looked completely fine, just unconscious. The only real sign injury was your elemental core being extremely weak."

"I..." Seto trailed off, not sure what to say "This… this doesn't make sense."

"You should consider yourself lucky," Bakura grunted, padding over and shoulder-shoving Seto out of the nest "most dragons who get hit by lightning either end up dead or severely damaged. Maybe lightning being your element made it… not affect you?"

"We both know elements don't work like that." Seto mumbled, glaring down at the silver dragon. Dragons were only unaffected by elements they themselves produced, and only while they were using it. Bakura should know this even with a non-damaging element, as Jou had been badly burned by fire when he was driven out of their territory.

Bakura said nothing as he whacked him with his wing and basically dragged him across the cave where he had a change of human clothes and what appeared to be a pile of herbs. "I'll prompt you into changing into a human, I need you to take this medicine and eat some actual food."

"I don't need prompting-" Seto tried to argue, but the healer shot a glare at him.

"Your elemental core is still weak, I've supported it through supplementation while you were unconscious, but you need to strengthen it up. For the next week, no transforming, no supplementing magic, and no use of your element. You can still prompt others though, since it doesn't use your own energy." The healer instructed, every point making Seto's face twist further into a grimace.

Sighing in defeat, Seto picked up the tunic and closed his eyes as he felt himself being prompted for the first time since he was a fledgeling. Allowing the healer to prompt him, Seto quickly pulled the tunic over his human body, and opened his eyes once he was properly covered. "How is my brother?" Seto asked as he picked up the mixture of fresh and dried herbs, swallowing them down with very little chewing since the flavor was a mixture between bitter, grassy, and fucking awful.

"You brother and the alpha's whelp have been watched over by Ryou and Mazaki." Bakura explained, watching the Lieutenant to make sure he was going to eat all of his medicine. "Now, Jounouchi should be waiting for you outside, he'll escort you back to the village. Once you're they, you are strictly going to rest and if you are going to work, nothing strenuous and only in your human form. If you do not follow this plan, I will break both of your legs."

While Seto wasn't that threatened by Bakura given that in dragon form he could tear the silver dragon to pieces, he knew the healer only wanted him to fully recover. It was winter anyways, it was best he conserve his energy best he could, especially since he was going to be using more energy to recover his elemental core.

Seto started towards the cave entrance before he stopped and looked back over his shoulder "Why is Jounouchi here?" He asked.

Bakura rolled his eyes and squashed his snout "You know that mutts a sentimental fool. He's been guarding the cave entrance during the day since you got here. He leaves at night to do his usual duties, but he comes back during the day."

"That stray." Seto mumbled under his breath, then flicked his eyes back up "Why isn't Marik here? Shouldn't he be treating me?"

Bakura seemed to stiffen, and then droop immediately "He's been… Occupied." Bakura admitted in a tight tone "His daughter came down with a fever and he refuses to let her out of his sight at the healer hut." Seto nodded in understanding; he knew that he was referring to Amane.

"Is… Rebecca alright?" Seto asked, all he could remember was her crying and not much else.

"She got dislocated her shoulder and got some nasty bruised ribs from the forced landing, but she's fine. In fact, she's been extremely worried about you, the brat feels guilty for getting you fried in the first place."

Seto felt burning - it wasn't a flustered type of burning though, the word fried seemed to trigger him to feel heat where he swore he'd had lightning scars before.

"You coming out, Kaiba?" He heard Jou call from outside of the cave, bringing the brunet back out of his thoughts. Nodding curtly to the healer, Seto exited the cave.

\---

"I could have walked you know."

"Relax snowdrift, Bakura did say to relax you know."

"Don't call me snowdrift."

"Why not? As a dragon you're basically a big pile of snow. Being all white, and cold."

Seto rolled his eyes as he sat straddled on the back of Jou's neck,. He'd initially refused to be carried and ride on the back of the black dragon, but given that he was in his weak human form he wasn't in any place to really argue.

If anything, he was just thankful that the hybrid Diamondtooth wasn't carrying him in his mouth.

"...Jounochi." Seto addressed amongst the silence.

"Yes?" The black dragon didn't bother to look over his shoulder.

"What happened back there?"

There wasn't a hitch in Jou's step or tone when he answered "What do you mean?" Seto knew that the other dragon knew exactly what he was talking about and was now trying to deflect.

"When I was struck by lightning, I was mangled." Seto stated, because he knew what he saw and he saw himself burnt with broken wings. The image of his horrifically maimed wings was burned into his memory. "And they tried carrying me, but then you and Yugi showed up."

"We were warned-"

"And how were you warned?" Seto stopped him in his tracks in both conversation and in actuality, as he slid off the other dragons neck and landed neatly onto the snow, stepping in front of him to look up at him as he spoke "Nosaka arranged the hunting party and no one outside of it knew about what we were doing, and when I was hit no one left to get help, they were all trying to bring me back to the village." Seto recalled the conversations that he could hear but not see "And even if someone left to get Yugi, why would they bring back both of you? Not that enough time had passed for any of us to fly away, get Yugi and yourself, and then fly all of the way back."

Jou slowly blinked down at him, his talons were shuffling a little but his ruby red eyes were completely unreadable "I… Knew you were in danger. So I told Yugi."

"How?" Seto demanded.

"I…" Jou cleared his throat, and looked side to side as he brought his massvie dark head down at level with the human Lieutenant "It's hard to explain."

"Explain it. I'm no fool." The brunet told him. Jou wasn't discrediting or shooting down anything he was saying, so clearly something else here was going on.

Jou tilted his head a little"What do you know about Diamontooth's?" He suddenly asked.

"They're the head of their respective Rafter." Seto answered impatiently, not missing a beat.

"What do you know about a Diamondtooth's abilities, though, Kaiba?" Jou asked, this time his tone was more hushed.

Seto frowned at the inquiry "The diamond teeth themselves as an enhanced weapon for biting, they're passed on through magical means of either an heir, or a Lieutenant if the former Diamondtooth had no heir, upon becoming diamondtooth the dragon in question gains a boost of their physical, mental, and magical abilities." He trailed off, everyone knew these things, that was why a Diamontooth was more than a figurehead. They were meant to be the most powerful dragon in their Rafter.

Jou seemed to hesitate, and he sighed "There's more to it. There's a secret known only to the big three of a Rafter; the healer, the Lorekeeper, and the Diamondtooth. Lorekeepers usually only tell a new Diamondtooth once they gain the rank. Even heirs aren't normally told of it."

"Stop beating around the dragon grass, either tell me or don't." Seto told him sharply, crossing his arms hard over his chest.

Jou stared hard at him for what must have been at least a minute, clearly hesitating "Diamondtooths have powers." He finally said, his voice straining.

"That isn't-"

"Unique powers." Jounouchi corrected himself, he sat down and wrapped his tail over his talons, looking down at Seto with less hard eyes as he continued "Every Diamondtooth has a power that is unique for it's Rafter, and it's passed down to each subsequent Diamondtooth, usually that power has something to do with their Rafters culture, strength or survival adaptations." He explained.

Seto furrowed his brows together. Unique powers? "Like what?" He pressed.

The black dragon sighed deeply, and he actually looked guilty for a second "My Rafter," he finally said, "we're nocturnal, so we're active during the night. However, most other dragons are active during the day so we're technically vulnerable during the day to most other dragons. So the alpha is supposed to keep watch during the day, so to do this… we never sleep."

Seto quirked a brow up "I've seen you sleep. You sleep outside of my hut all damn day."

"Our bodies sleep," he corrected "our minds do not. When I fall asleep, I can leave my body."

"..." Seto narrowed his eyes.

"I can see you don't believe me." Jou observed "It's similar to astral projection, it's so that I can watch over the territory when the rest of my Rafter is asleep."

"And what does that have to do with me getting struck by lightning? Get to the point, stray."

"When my mind projected out of my body, I followed your group and saw you got struck, so I woke myself up and went to get Yugi."

"As interesting as that is," ultimately, it was extremely interesting, he knew that a Diamondtooth was powerful, but a unique supernatural ability per Rafter was something else "that doesn't explain why I'm not a wreck."

"Oh, you are, don't get it twisted." Jou sassed him, if Seto were a dragon he would have shoved him over "Tell me, haven't you noticed how healthy your Rafter is? Ribs breaking, gored by buffalo, and yet most of you don't stay injured for much longer than a few days." Jou said.

He thought for a minute. When he was younger, he and his peerage broke their ribs often, Mazaki especially seemed affected by this affliction, However, her frailty seemed to disapear as soon as they came out of fledgeling stage.

In fact, there was the time she broke her leg, yet was doing regular duties no more than a few days later… And she didn't even have a limp, like a lot of dragons who break their limbs do even after their bones re-mend.

But, this occurred not long after Yugi became Diamondtooth.

"Healing," Seto concluded, looking up to the black dragon "Yugi can heal other dragons." Jou nodded "But, how did you know that?"

"If I project out of my body, that doesn't mean I can't project into other ones." Jou said "I can go into the minds of other dragons… but only while they sleep. I believe this dream-walking was so a Diamondtooth of the Shadow Forest could know all of the secrets of their dragons." Being sneaky was one of the Shadow Forest Rafters main attributes, and while they weren't above lying and sneaking and spying to get their way or find out information, their Diamondtooth took these tactics to the extreme by going into a dragons very mind, finding out things about others that could otherwise be kept as secret.

However, if Jounouchi could dream-walk, that meant-

"Have you been coming into my dreams?" Seto asked in a tight tone.

"Yes." The black dragon had the decency to at least now not try to hide it "You have very stable dreams."

If Seto were a dragon, he would have bit him by the scruff of his pointy neck and flung him across the plains, but he wasn't a dragon now, he was just a human.

"...Take me back to the village." Seto growly lowly, and he noted with satisfaction his tone of voice clearly bit into the other dragon "And do not carry me. I'm fine walking, When we get there, stay the hell away my hut unless if you're picking up your daughter." He turned and started down the path, and he heard Jou shuffle his talons, and begin to follow him.

"Okay." Jounouch answered curtly, but there was guilt leaching into his tone.

"And more importantly," Seto looked over his shoulder to glare even as he continued down the path "stay the hell away from me."

To be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Note: Okay, so we have a lot to unpack here.
> 
> For starters; The Shadow Forest Rafter has sign language! It's called Claw-Speak when it's the dragon equivalent.
> 
> Rebecca is the heir presumptive to the Domino Rafter, because she and Yugi are cousins (Sugoroku and Arthur were mates, the heir system is actually passed through who the dame is rather than the sire in this Rafter unless if the dragon in question only has children through being a sire)
> 
> And I've said in the authors note a few chapters back that Yugi and Jou have unique powers because they are a Diamondtooth. Some guessed that Jou's had something to do with dream-walking, which is part of it. Yugi's is healing though, and this was hinted to a couple chapters ago talking about Anzu's injuries. This isn't very 'conventionally' healing though, will go more into depth next chapter.
> 
> And Kaiba's pissed because, well, Jounouchi literally intruded into his mind without permission. Going into someones mind is kind of like busting open their diary... only it's worse, really.
> 
> These abilities will come into play soon, along with more personal lore between some characters, some of you may have noticed.


End file.
